For SOPAC leadership, the return of film to the performing arts center is about more than entertainment. Executive Director Lana Rogachevskaya emphasized that the theater’s reopening will strengthen both revenue and community engagement.
“The return of cinema to SOPAC is both financially and culturally meaningful. Box Office Cinemas operates as a rental tenant within our building, and that consistent rental income is an important part of SOPAC’s business model and annual budget,” Rogachevskaya told the Village Green. “Beyond that, having the theaters active again brings more people through the building throughout the week and reinforces SOPAC as a vibrant cultural destination in South Orange.”
A Community that Missed Its Local Movies
When the cinema closed in March 2025, leaving the two towns without a movie theater, the response from both South Orange and Maplewood residents was immediate and heartfelt.
Moviegoers watch previews on the first weekend the SOPAC Cinemas re-opened by Box Office Cinemas in March 2026. (Photo by Laura Griffin)
“We heard from longtime patrons who remembered bringing their children to their first movie here and residents who value having a walkable, local cinema experience,” Rogachevskaya said. “It was clear that people missed the unique experience of seeing films in this space.”
Even as live performances continued, she said, the absence of cinema left a noticeable gap in SOPAC’s offerings and a loss for community cinema engagement.
Behind the Reopening
According to Tom Arnold, district manager and director of operations for Box Office Cinemas – the private theater chain leasing both the Maplewood and SOPAC theaters – planning for the reopening of cinema at SOPAC was a complex process involving inspections, staffing, and a great deal of logistical planning.
The theater re-opened March 25 with some upgrades already completed, particularly in the lobby, where new digital signage and updated concession areas have been installed. Larger renovations inside the auditoriums, such as new seating and carpeting, are planned but will take place gradually to avoid further delays, Arnold told Village Green.
Supply chain challenges have also played a significant role in the inability to complete more significant infrastructure updates sooner, Arnold said
“Tariffs were imposed on seating and materials, so a lot of companies and electronics – products across the board – stopped keeping these products in stock because they are expensive to buy and just sit there, so everything became as per order,” said Arnold. “So if we decided we wanted 700 seats, it could take six months just to get them, or they would come in drips and drabs and that would prevent us from opening.”
Originally targeting a November 2025 opening, the project to reopen SOPAC’s cinema was pushed back a few times because of overlapping construction issues and the need for various administrative approvals.
Looking to coincide the grand opening with the release of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which was expected to be one of spring’s largest commercial blockbusters, Box Office Cinemas had aimed to open in early April to draw in as many moviegoers as possible.
Arnold said they had planned on a “soft opening” with showtimes online but not advertised, as a way to train staff.
SOPAC, however, chose to open slightly earlier – on March 25 – holding a celebratory ribbon cutting in front of the new concession stand, with the South Orange Mayor Sheena Collum, members of the Village Council and SOPAC leadership in attendance along with a large crowd of excited moviegoers, including some from the Maplewood Film Society, who were eager to have a local theater again.
The ribbon cutting was followed by two days of free screenings of older films before the cinema opened up for regular admission on Friday, March 27, starting with Project Hail Mary and the animated Hoppers then adding The Super Mario Galaxy Movie a week later to eager audiences.
“The South Orange community has overwhelmingly welcomed us into the town,” Arnold said. “We were honored by the high turnout for the ribbon-cutting ceremony and the support we’ve received so far. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how well business has been considering we opened just before the holiday weekend.”
What Moviegoers Can Expect
SOPAC’s cinema sits at one of the most impactful centers for art and culture within the heart of SOMA, so the question of whether Box Office Cinemas will attempt to match this artistic mission by screening smaller art films for local audiences is one frequently asked.
“At first we’re probably going to be doing mainstream films, like the big-budget Hollywood films,” he said. “We will have art screens as they pop up, and we will be doing rentals and screenings based on what comes our way.”
Community engagement is a large factor in how Box Office Cinemas will run their business, he said, and although they would love to screen a wide variety of films upon request, the main concern is staying open and making a profit.
“Pressure to me is not so much about what we’re gonna play, it’s what is going to be profitable, at the end of the day we need to make profit. We got rent to pay, we got bills to pay, we got employees to pay,” Arnold explained.
Regarding community wishes, Arnold explained that he has been in contact with the Maplewood Film Society, “in fact they want to start doing screenings here, as a way to kind of ramp up excitement for what they want to do in Maplewood,” he said.
“Art films can do business, there is nothing wrong with playing an art film, just like mainstream can do business,” he said. “…When you have limited screens, the pressure isn’t so much what to play, it’s ‘what did I miss out on.’”
Arnold expanded on the balance between showing smaller films and larger commercial Hollywood movies by saying “you want that type of film to come out, you want that product. It’s going to make you play to your audience. In a theatre when you’re going to mix your product, you have to guess.”
With a limited number of screens upon initial opening, audiences may not see many independent, artistic films hitting the SOPAC screens for a while. However, with Box Office Cinemas also opening up Maplewood theaters on the horizon, Arnold assures moviegoers that between the two theaters, the company will have the ability to screen a large variety of movies to keep up with community demand.
What About the Maplewood Theater?
Although tremendous amounts of work and effort have been put into getting both South Orange and Maplewood’s movie theaters back up and running, the Maplewood Theater is in need of a much larger renovation, Arnold said.
“It’s just a theatre that stopped operating 5-6 years ago and over time things happen,” Arnold said. “Water pipes burst because they get frozen, there’s some humidity in the summer…humidity damage to the walls and the wallpaper starts to peel.”
Along with those damages, Arnold said, both the cleaning and the duct work of the building have fallen in, and at one point, vandals broke in and damaged the property inside.
“These are all things we are going to address as we go through it to see what we have to change and what we have to fix.”
Old auditorium seats being hauled away from the Maplewood Theater on February 26, 2026. (Photo by Kari Capone)
Despite the condition of the building, progress is already underway, he said. Crews have begun clearing out debris and removing various damaged materials, including auditorium seats, in preparation for future reconstruction. According to Arnold, this initial phase is focused on creating a clean foundation for the space before any design and structural decisions are finalized.
The scale of renovation for the Maplewood theater will ultimately depend on how drastically the space is redesigned, he said. If the existing 6-theatre layout is preserved and maintained, the process will be more straightforward in terms of reopening. However, the possibility for more ambitious plans, such as reconstructing the interior layout of the theater space could extend the timeline significantly.
“I would like to say the end of the year, if all goes well,” Arnold said, referring to a possible reopening date. “It really depends on how drastic of a change we want to make.”
A Combined Local Cinema Mission
Once Maplewood is up and running, Box Office Cinemas aims to expand the overall moviegoing experience across the two communities.
Rather than operating as two completely separate theatres in neighboring towns, Box Office Cinemas hopes to program both locations as one unified system of screenings. Combined, both the SOPAC and Maplewood theaters locations could offer up to 11 screens, allowing for a significantly wider range of films and opportunities for both locations without jeopardizing profit or budget for Box Office Cinemas as an independent cinema chain, Arnold said.
“What I would like to do eventually is use Maplewood and [SOPAC], booked as one large theater,” Arnold said. “So I have 11 screens in two locations rather than one 5-screen and one 6-screen.”
This approach would make it easier to balance larger blockbuster releases with independent films, as well as the possibility of special rentals or community events. “This way I can play the mainstream films and I can play the art films together,” he said.
The overall goal would be to give audiences in the SOMA area more variety with a shared, expanded cinema lineup without the theaters competing with one another, he said.
While long-term structural and programming plans are still developing, the focus for now remains on operating the SOPAC location. As audience patterns become clearer over time, more diverse screenings are expected to follow.
As SOPAC’s Lana Rogachevskaya emphasized, “Film brings together storytelling, music, visual artistry, and performance,” and with its celebrated return to SOPAC, the cinema reopening marks a renewed commitment to expanding access to the Arts locally and deepening cultural appreciation across the community.
Norah Pharaon is an 11th grade student at Columbia High School, working with Village Green as a paid freelancer through a grant from the NJ Civic Information Consortium.
