Baxter Avenue Theatres will hold its last showings on New Year’s Eve. It opened in 1996.
Apex Entertainment, which owns Baxter, told local media in a statement that the closure has to do with uncertainty about Mid City Mall’s future. The complex is set to be redeveloped, but Apex said it has “not received any indication" Baxter is part of the upcoming plans.
Local film patrons and filmmakers have in recent weeks shared how much Baxter means to them. An online petition in support of keeping the theater open had more than 5,700 signatures as of Monday morning.
“It represented Louisville's ability to create a community to basically support not only our locals that are lending a hand to creatives, but also the very small, very niche, tightly wound group of creatives and filmmakers like myself that are coming out of Louisville,” local indie filmmaker Emmett Swann told LPM News earlier this month.
He also said it was a place to screen productions more affordably than at chain theaters.
In Facebook comments on Baxter’s post about the closure, patrons said they had fond memories of viewing movies there and many called out midnight showings and the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” in particular.
Village 8, another theater owned by Apex, closed in 2022.
