Less than 10 months after Maven Cinemas opened in American Fork, owners Joseph and Dvorah Governale have announced they will be closing it down.
The movie-loving couple had revitalized the old theater on American Fork’s Main Street — a two-screen movie house that could seat 300 people and played a roster of classic films.
The theater opened last September and had been closed for a month because of an electrical fire. It announced the permanent closure on its Instagram account and a Facebook post. The Governales did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment for this story.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Joseph and Dvorah Governale in their two-screen theater on Main Street in American Fork, on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023.
The caption on the Instagram post read: “As hard as we have tried to hang on during this extended shutdown, we are finding ourselves coming to a difficult conclusion: we must close Maven Cinemas at the old Sticky Shoe theater.”
On June 2, a fire hit the 80-year-old building in which the Maven is housed, alongside five other tenants. For the past month, the theater has been dark as The Maven has dealt with power issues.
In a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune, the Governales said the reason for closure was twofold: the financial strain and issues with the building’s owners.
”Being shut down for two of the most important months out of the year for a movie theater was beyond financially devastating for us,” they wrote. “We not only lost out on the summer season, but we had to cancel numerous events, refund ticket and rental pre-sales for both months, and lost momentum in marketing efforts.”
The Governales said they had troubles communicating with the building owners during the shutdown after the electrical fire.
”What breaks our hearts the most is to see how positive of an impact the theater had begun to make, and to feel as though we are failing our community by not being able to continue. ... We feel so strongly that this is such an important piece of cinema history and a crucial experience to preserve ...,” they wrote.
The space originally opened in 1950 as the Coral Theatre, and later was known as the Towne — and was affectionally referred to in American Fork as the “Sticky Shoe Theater.” It had been closed for 20 years before the Governales started Maven Cinemas.
The Maven screened its first movie on Friday, Sept. 29, and followed that weekend with a “Twilight” marathon. Maven Cinemas had built a following based on the old movies they show and the marathons they host for film series, such as “The Lord of The Rings” and the “Harry Potter” franchise.
“We will miss geeking out about films and watching our community creating meaningful experiences more than we can possibly express,” said the theater’s Instagram post, which featured a clip from “The Lord of the Rings.”
In the comments of the Instagram announcement, moviegoers and fans expressed disappointment at the closure — and joy for the memories they created at the theater.
The Maven’s closure leaves only one theater in Utah that plays only classic films: The Utah Theatre in Logan.