Rocky Top 10 Reopens Friday

Grab your popcorn and drink. The cinema experience returns Friday with the reopening of Crossville’s Rocky Top 10.

The theater will start showings for throwback movies at 25 percent capacity to promote social distancing. General Manager Blaine Moore said he expects the theater reopening to run smoothly. He is excited for customers to finally return to the big screen.

“People are looking to get out and do something,” Moore said. “A lot of what people do when they want to get out of the house and go do something is go to the movies. Secondly for us, since we are locally owned, the major chains aren’t open right now except for the drive ins, so we are the only game in town.”

Moore said the next big movie release is in July. After Labor Day, releases for movies look to be returning to normal. Until then, they will show movies such as the Harry Potter and Fast and Furious franchises. Movies will change every two weeks unless one showing was very popular.

“We’ve reached out to Warner Brother’s, Universal and Paramount to get some older movies to play,” Moore said. “We believe they will sell good since they were favorites of people when they first came out.”

Moore said eventually, they hope to open up to 50 percent capacity in their second phase of reopening. But Moore does not know when that will happen. Despite the lack of ticket sells, he still expects the theater to break even through concession sales.

“We have been out of the groove for about 10 weeks,” Moore said. “When the kids were in here cleaning getting ready, they were asking questions about the procedures of concessions. It is challenging for all of us to get back to normal.”

Employees will wear masks at all times and patrons will be seated every other row. Moore said they will clean each theater between every showing. Parties must leave two seats between other groups of people in the theater.

The Rocky Top 10 will run limited hours and run each movie three times a day from 1:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. For information for showtimes, visit the Rocky Top 10’s website or call 931-456-5772