Report: The Landmark Sunshine Cinema closes on Jan. 21

Report: The Landmark Sunshine Cinema closes on Jan. 21
The owners of the the Landmark Sunshine Cinema on East Houston have made its closing date official: Jan. 21.Deadline Hollywood broke the story last night.Ted Mundorff, CEO of Landmark Theatres, took a pragmatic tone when reached by Deadline. “We’ve known it was coming,” he said. No special programming or commemoration is planned on the final weekend, he confirmed. “There’s nothing to celebrate.”The Sunshine moved up “Dog Day Afternoon” one weekend, and the Al Pacino classic will play alongside “Super Fly” as the theater’s last midnight movies on Jan. 19-20.To recap, last May, the Post reported that East End Capital and K Property Group bought the building for $31.5 million with plans to convert it to a mixed-use development with retail and upstairs office space. The site includes 20,000 square feet of air rights.In November, the new owners of the building housing the theater filed demolition permits to take down the three-level structure here between Eldridge and Forsyth, per The Lo-Down.Landmark reportedly had the opportunity to buy the property, but decided against it after CB3 voted down a proposal for a full liquor license for a cafe in the theater in 2012 for pre- and post-movie drinks and dinner. Landmark now offers those amenities at a new theater on West 57th Street.The Sunshine had been expected to close in early 2018. The recent arrival of some special screenings at the theater gave hope to some Sunshine regulars that, perhaps, the place would remain open for a few months longer…… and there was a tweet from the Sunshine about the Oscars…We’ll be back live-tweeting #TheOscars on March 4 so be sure to mark your calendars, everyone!— Sunshine Cinema (@sunshine_cinema) January 8, 2018https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsThe Sunshine opened on Dec. 21, 2001.[2001 photo via Facebook]Built in 1898, the Sunshine Cinema building was formerly the Houston Hippodrome motion picture theatre and a Yiddish vaudeville house.[Photo taken during the BombCyclone last Thursday]