- April 7, 2025
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Movie theater owners Shana David-Massett and Tim Massett went on a reconnaissance mission — some might call it Mission: Impossible — last August at the Look Dine-In Cinemas in the University neighborhood of Tampa.
It didn't go so well.
“My chicken fingers came, like, an hour and a half into the movie and it was just…there were so many gross things,” David-Massett recalls.
The couple, despite both the poor service and knowing the movie theater industry has been struggling mightily post-Covid, also saw something else: opportunity. They were seeking their next movie theater to operate, having done that in Jacksonville for nearly 15 years. and this felt just right. Says David-Massett: "I was like, ‘let's take it.'"
So the couple, under the brand Sun Ray Cinemas, took over the lease and, notably, signed a 20-year extension. The theater, shuttered since Hurricane Milton, reopened, in December.
The goal is to invest up to $2 million in upgrades over the next couple of years. Thus far, about $500,000 has gone into the theater — swapping out recliners, upgrading the sound system and hiring 25 employees. "That's a combination of SBA loans and our personal investment and reinvestment of the funds that we make. The little, tiny pennies that we make in this building go back into paying those 25 people," David-Massett says.
“Every single second of our lives also counts as a number,” she adds.
The investment is somewhat counterintuitive considering the industry's slide. In 2019, to cite one of multiple examples, there were 910 domestic releases grossing $11.4 billion, according to data from IMDb. In 2024, 675 releases banked $8.5 billion in revenue. That's a 25% drop in paying customers. Those figures, too, are dwarfed by Netflix's $21billion in U.S. revenue in 2024.
Beyond the box office numbers, the pair brings passion to this venture. Their taste come from many years of experience, having met at a movie theater. The two worked together when, according to David-Massett, he told her, "I want a place like this, but better."
After working for other theater companies for awhile, even taking a detour to open a theater in Duluth, Minnesota, the pair made their way back to Florida and opened the first iteration of Sun Ray Cinema in the Five Points neighborhood of Jacksonville in 2011.
David-Massett, much like the strategy the big movie theater chains that remain in business are undertaking, is selling not just flicks, but an experience.
“Movie going takes you to another place, and if you're in your regular place, you can't go to that other place as easily in your regular place,” David-Massett says. “And so it takes you out of yourself and into a story, whether it's a documentary story or it's a narrative story, or it's a kid story, or whatever, it takes you out.”
An advantage the pair has is that they have proven their model works: When the first Sun Ray Cinema location in Jacksonville closed in spring 2024, it was bringing in $1.5 million annually.
"That was our proof of concept, the spot in Jacksonville. You know, if you can execute a movie theater in this, in that space, then you can really do well in a space like this because this is just so many screens," David-Massett says.
Other challenges linger. The 2023 Screen Actors Guild strikes, for one. When movies aren’t being made, that proves to be a problem.
“We're very confident that we're getting through the strikes part. I don't know what's going to happen next, but I'm sure there's going to be something next,” David-Massett says.
In the meantime, an uphill battle for the pair is actually something so small it's held in the palm of your hand. Although movie theaters have been telling people to silence their cellphones for years now, it’s still proving to be an issue with people checking messages, using their flashlight to look for things and even playing games mid-screening.
“That scares me a little bit for us as humans,” she says, but remaining optimistic, adds, “but I think we're gonna move through it.”
Commercial real estate costs and availability are also a challenge, but can also be an asset. The redevelopment of the University Mall is happening bit-by-bit, and a movie theater would need to be completely revamped to become something else. David-Massett posits that it’s easier to keep the theater for those living and working in the area than to start from scratch on a different project.
The pair are currently making great strides to bring the place up to their standards. Of 14 total screens, seven are currently operational. Over time, other screens had their parts cannibalized and some code changes affected screen height, but those will be restored in time.
Projectors of various sizes like 16mm, 35mm and 70mm are part of the planned investment so that specialized films are able to be shown. (For the casual moviegoer, some directors shoot on special films. Quentin Tarantino’s 2015 film “Hateful Eight” was shot on 70mm film, the first movie to use that format since the 1960s.)
David-Massett says, “I'm just so eager to see people coming in these doors. The people who are coming right now, they’re our early adopters, and they are coming in with just such enthusiasm and with such joy.”
