5 hours ago
1
We come to this place for magic … and a hefty bill.
A new luxury cinema just opened in Manhattan’s bougie Chelsea neighborhood, with ticket prices to match.
The Metro Cinema, founded by Alamo Drafthouse’s Tim League, offers film aficionados a premium movie-going experience that could run you roughly $200 per head.
Located at 131 Eighth Ave., the cinema offers 20 private screening rooms for four to 20 guests. The swanky digs include a wall-to-wall movie screen, plush seating and an optional multi-course meal.
“For over a century, cinema has been experienced in a crowded room surrounded by strangers,” said League in a statement shared with The Post. “We’ve changed that.”
In line with the Alamo Drafthouse style, the culinary offerings at Metro Cinema don’t stop at bottomless popcorn buckets. Chef Joshua Guarneri, the man behind New York’s Breslin and LA’s Hearth and Hound, is cooking up specialties such as peri peri prawns, curried mushroom soup shooters and lamb tongue carpaccio.
All of this luxury comes at blockbuster prices.
A six-seat November screening of “Frankenstein” could run you and your five closest friends a whopping $1,200, according to The Post’s calculations. That includes $300 to book the room, a $100-per-person fall menu and a signature drink package at $50-a-head (or $25, if you’re a teetotaler.) That all shakes out to $200 each when the credits roll — not including tax or tip.
Extra special $125-a-person menus include a Thanksgiving Day feast alongside “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” or a Chinese-inspired roast duck dinner with “A Christmas Story.”
Fans of the French cult classic “Amélie” can enjoy an esoteric offering of 10 raspberries to place upon one’s fingertips and a bag of lentils to plunge one’s hand into.
Guests in private suites have carte blanche for what they’d like to watch, so watch party possibilities are essentially endless.
Movie-goers have an increasing appetite for gourmet movie experiences, and they’re willing to pay a premium. Brooklyn’s Nitehawk Cinema offers indie flicks alongside $26 cheese boards, and the Lower East Side’s Metrograph serves a hearty plate of $38 steak frites in its commissary restaurant.
Despite eye-popping menu prices, it seems the exclusivity — and cost — of Metro Cinema’s offerings have few competitors. There’s Dubai’s Reel Cinema platinum suites, where guests are served by a personal butler, and cozy up with a pillow and blankets. Those ticket prices shake out to roughly $50 per person, however, according to its website.
Perhaps the nearest point of comparison is the underground cinema at Hotel Barriere Fouquet’s New York. The Art Deco theater, hidden in the bowels of the five-star Tribeca hotel, opened its doors to the public late last year.
Attendees of “Cozy Classics at Cannes Cinema” spend the evening elegantly splayed across the luxe theater’s golden velvet loveseats, shelling out $110 for two drinks and a movie, or $215 for special events.
The opening of Metro Cinema coincided with news that the Upper West Side’s beloved Metro Theater is dropping its name and adopting a fresh look.
The long-vacant theater, located along Broadway between West 99th and 100th streets, was a hollowed-out shell when it was rescued earlier this year. Its salvation came in the form of a $6.9 million cash buy-out by a well-connected nonprofit of movie lovers. The group, Upper West Side Cinema Center, counts Governor Kathy Hochul and several A-listers among its supporters.
The Center announced this week that its art deco movie house will begin a new chapter as the Uptown Film Center. Fresh plans for the high-brow, arthouse cinema project include five screens, an education center and a cafe.
The Uptown Film Center — if the $29 million capital campaign goes smoothy — aims to break ground in early 2027 and open to the public in 2028.
Despite the new name and new interiors, the building’s iconic, pink stucco facade will remain in place. You can’t beat the classics!
English (US)