The Maple Theater, Bloomfield Township institution for 40-plus years, closes its doors

The Maple Theater, a longstanding Bloomfield Township institution and a haven for local moviegoers, has closed its doors, theater management said Monday.

The abrupt announcement comes after the theater's lease expired and managers Jon and Lauren Goldstein chose not to renew. It had been showing movies as recently as the weekend, including current Best Picture Oscar nominees "American Fiction" and "The Zone of Interest."

"We have decided that it is time to end our run as operators of this wonderful institution," the Goldsteins said in a note posted on the theater's website. "We have been honored to be stewards of the Maple Theater and appreciate all the support and patronage from the community for the past 12 years."

The decision comes amid hard times for the movie theater industry, especially among independent theaters and art houses. Royal Oak's Main Art Theatre, another longstanding area art house theater, closed its doors in June 2021, and Cinema Detroit left its Midtown location in June 2023.

"I'm very sad," said Ruth Daniels, one of the Maple's managing partners, who was in charge of programming and events at the theater.

John Monaghan, a programmer at the Redford Theatre, paid tribute to the Maple on Monday by posting, "Thank you Maple Theater, 1977 to 2024" on the Redford marquee.

Monaghan remembers seeing the Who's "Quadrophenia" and Slava Tsukerman's punk rock sci-fi odyssey "Liquid Sky" at the theater back in its late 1970s and early 1980s heyday, a time when booking at local theaters was hotly contested. He says the theater's closing marks the end of an era in Metro Detroit moviegoing.

"It means there's no local art house, no dedicated space to the enjoyment of non-commercial films on a nightly basis, and it's the first time I can remember it being that way," he said. "It's really pretty important what just happened."

Coupled with Cinema Detroit's closing and the razing of the Main Art Theatre, "it makes for a pretty dismal 12 months," Monaghan said.

The Maple, tucked behind a mini-mall at Telegraph and Maple roads, opened in March 1977 as the Maple 1-2-3, and in its first weeks, it showed "The Domino Principle" with Gene Hackman and Candice Bergen, the French romantic comedy "Cousin Cousine" and Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver."

The three-screen movie house was home to independent features and smaller films that fell outside of the Hollywood mainstream. Megaplexes are the place for blockbusters, but the Maple was the spot where viewers could still catch the latest Woody Allen film months after it opened in theaters.

The Goldsteins took over the Maple in 2012, after Landmark, the chain that took over the theater from AMC in 1998, ended its agreement with the theater. In the '70s and '80s, it was under the Suburban Detroit Theatres chain.

When the Goldsteins took over, they instituted monthly Secret Cinema showings, split into Old Hollywood and New Hollywood categories, selections that were curated by local personalities and were a surprise to audiences until they started playing. The theater also hosted a "GOAT" series dedicated to the greatest films of all time, and it hosted annual viewing parties for the Academy Awards.

As movie theaters struggled to get patrons back post-pandemic, the Maple expanded its reach to show more mainstream fare, while still balancing its programming with art house titles and foreign films. Attempts to get a restaurant up and running in the front half of the building, which faced Maple Road, were unsuccessful; an arm of Ferndale favorite Como's opened in February 2021 and closed in June 2022.

"The pandemic had huge effects on independent 'art house' theaters. We are proud that we stayed open and continued to serve people during such a crazy time," the Goldsteins wrote in their announcement on Monday. "We worked hard to try to return near to pre-pandemic attendance, and while there are tangible glimmers of hope, we are unable to make the financial commitment necessary to keep The Maple a first-class establishment. Anything less would tarnish what we worked so hard over these years to build."

The theater has entered into a partnership with Emagine Theatres to honor Maple theatergoers who were a part of its membership club, and outstanding gift cards can be redeemed at the Birmingham 8. Details are available on the Maple's website.

agraham@detroitnews.com