Maryland’s Only Black-Owned Movie Theater Is Drawing Crowds From Across The Country

By Phillip Lewis, The Huffington Post

When Anthony Fykes and Robert Wright met, they immediately connected through their love for movies. But the pair never imagined that a shared passion for cinema would lead them to open their own theater together.

NextAct Cinema, the only black-owned movie theater in the state of Maryland, opened on March 7 and the response has been overwhelming, the owners say. After a few viral posts online and media coverage, moviegoers from all over have shared messages of support and excitement about the theater’s opening.

”I’ve gotten emails from Texas, from Chicago, from South Carolina, from California,” Fykes, 38, told HuffPost. “The support has been very humbling for us because we didn’t know that what we were doing could have such a social impact” …

They renovated the Pikes Theatre in Pikesville, Maryland, a suburb northwest of Baltimore, and gave it a brand new look. There are two small but comfortable theater rooms with 43 seats each. Guests can order popcorn, a meal or wine from their seats, delivered by the theater’s waitstaff.

According to the Motion Picture Association of America, the number of frequent African-American moviegoers soared from 3.8 million in 2015 to 5.6 million in 2016. However, many black communities across the country are “cinema deserts” and lack any movie theaters at all, much less any that are black-owned….

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