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When the Hollywood Theatre opened the David Lynch-themed Bar Hollywood next door to its historic movie house last month, much breathless praise on social media ensued, as well as a quick sellout of the remaining screenings in the theater’s In Heaven: A David Lynch Retrospective.
But it turns out Bar Hollywood is just the tip of the iceberg in the Hollywood Theatre’s vision for transforming its Northeast Sandy Boulevard neighborhood.
The biggest change coming is that Movie Madness, the iconic Portland rental store that has resided at 4320 SE Belmont St. since its founding in 1991, will move across the street from the Hollywood. (The theater has owned Movie Madness since 2018, when founder Mike Clark retired.) Customers can expect an expanded Movie Madness, including a larger special screening room—its current “miniplex” seats 18 guests—and a new restaurant and bar.
“We envision a vibrant hub of community life that will draw movie lovers together from all over the region and beyond,” says Doug Whyte, Hollywood Theatre’s executive director. “Portland’s Hollywood Film District will combine everything a great film experience can offer: rare movie screenings, festivals, gathering spaces for classes, social spaces for movie lovers to connect with each other. In short, the film district will be a film lover’s dream neighborhood.”
The new Movie Madness space, at 4071 NE Sandy Blvd., housed Blackwell’s Grub Steak Grill from 1982 to 2018. In 2024, the owners, Dean Vincent Family Trust, were getting ready to put the property on the market. It sold on April 8 for $1.6 million to Jeme Brelin, who lives nearby and is a donor to the Hollywood. After receiving some unexpected family money, he and his wife had to decide. “Do we invest in ourselves, or do we invest in our community?” Brelin says. They went with the latter.
“Our primary goal is this, our charitable aspiration or whatever, is to spur development in the Hollywood neighborhood to make more buildings get redeveloped. That’s our interest,” Brelin says.
He has partnered with a developer to renovate the space and plans to charge Movie Madness and the Hollywood Theatre reasonable rent once it’s finished. His expectations are modest: “My goal is to lose zero dollars.”
The Hollywood Theatre’s administrative offices will also move into the new building, Whyte says. In addition, the 1926 theater building itself will undergo a much-needed renovation. The theater has pulled permits for storefront modifications, adding theater seats upstairs, renovating the restrooms, and relocating the concessions area. This will improve accessibility, sustainability, and the moviegoing experience for all guests, Whyte says, also noting that the Hollywood Film District vision will likely take about three years to complete.
It’s part of a dizzying amount of commercial energy in the Hollywood neighborhood right now, says Paul Clark, secretary of the Hollywood Boosters Business Association. The former Sandy Boulevard Rite Aid is turning into a Planet Fitness, and the shuttered Starbucks on Northeast César E. Chávez Boulevard sold in January, according to public records.
A food cart pod with eight restaurants is going in across the street from the Hollywood at 40th Avenue and Sandy in the original Laurelwood Brewing space. The new owner is Chad Rennaker of Palindrome Properties Group, the developer behind Southeast Portland’s Zoiglhaus Brewing and the attached ZED food hall. Rennaker did not return a call and an email seeking comment.
“Things are really rolling,” says Clark, who has been in the area for 60 years. “And it all happened just within a few months. Isn’t that something? Real positive things. Everyone’s real pleased to hear all this stuff.”
Relocating Movie Madness from Belmont and trying to re-create its quirky magic a mile and a half north is no small feat. Its film collection runs 90,000 titles deep, enhanced by an extensive prop collection, including Mother’s knife from Psycho and Ingrid Bergman’s chair from Casablanca.
Matt Parnell, managing director of Movie Madness, says he cannot talk about the move publicly yet.
David Walker, a filmmaker, comic book writer and former WW film critic, has been a customer at Movie Madness since it opened. The idea of moving it “shocks me, but not in a bad way,” he says.
“Movie Madness has been there for so long, and not just in terms of Portland, but in the nation, it’s one of the last video stores still standing,” Walker says. “By having Movie Madness and the Hollywood in close proximity to each other, it gives the city of Portland and film fans, really, a base of operations.”
