 Sunray Cinema is asking its customers to reach out to St. John's County commissioners in hopes of saving North Florida's largest screen, the IMAX at World Golf Village. Shannon David Massad, co-owner of Sunray Cinema in Five Points is here now to explain. Let me just say before we get started two things I love Sunray. IMAX World Golf Village. Like I just love, I saw What was the second Batman? Christopher Nolan Batman. The Dark Knight. The scene when he was flying through Hong Kong on the IMAX screen. I still think of it today and just like It's amazing. It's amazing. So like look peanut and chocolate butter two things I love put them together What a beautiful way of putting that. Yes. So how do we get chocolate and peanut butter to mix? Tell me what what what are your plans? What are you trying to do? All right, so here's what we started with That IMAX theater you saw that Dark Knight one. Yes, it's it's open. It's doing some business Yeah, real and so when we heard this announcement it's gonna close in September and It's gonna become the property of St. John's County. We reached out to the County Commissioner You know this place has something incredible St. John's County is very lucky to now be in possession of this IMAX screen and and we hear you're not sure what you're going to do with it We have some ideas. We also happen to be right here in Jacksonville And we've been operating a movie theater under adverse circumstances for 12 years. Yep So let's see if we can talk about your adverse circumstances that are quite fortunate circumstances in some ways because you can keep This screen going if you'd like to and we got a response that was well what that sounds fantastic We don't see why not from this one commissioner we spoke to what should reach out to all the other commissioners and so we did and The the assistant for all the commissioners said okay. Well, it's gonna have to go to public comment We're not really sure what's going to happen and we said oh good When does the public comment start and the office said we don't know and we said okay and so we announced on Facebook that the commissioners are going to be looking for comment as to what they should do with their cool new IMAX screen and Here's their email addresses by the way and So some people responded to that and responded and responded one of the responses was from a real savvy customer who made this website Sunray IMAX comm which was not a website. I was envisioning existing, you know In any other ways then Wishful fantastical Because we didn't expect that the IMAX would go into the hands of St. John's County But when movie theaters go dark as they do across America day by day They go different routes and what happens to them is always an interesting thing And we as Sunray are always curious to see what happens to it This one is just so close to us and we're in a position to take it on right away There's no there's no reason for it to go dark. Yeah, and you guys I mean you've done this before because before you took over Sunray It was club five which I've had many many crazy nights at club five But but when club five closed down you guys came in and and made it a movie theater again So my other half has been showing movies to this community and bringing movies to this forever Before I was here. I moved here in 2003 so before that right and in any spaces that can be converted to Showing movies he has seen and jumped on and worked with in all kinds of ways So there's all kinds of history, but the history with this particular space started in 2011 Yeah, because it wasn't a movie theater, you're right for some quite some time and there's There's a big change in the way that people see movies now But there was before when that single screen as it was closed and became a night club That was because people were changing the way that they were going to see their move Absolutely hot minute ago. Yeah, and you know when I think about San Marco the the movie theater closing in San Marco It kind of breaks my heart like these places are you know because Movies theater the art it's it's it's a communal experience You know like you're there with I remember being in that I maxed during dark night and watching the entire Audience feel like we were flying through Hong Kong with Batman and we were all doing it together like it's a very communal experience and so when You know one of these great theaters closed down and it closes down in our community I feel like it really takes something away from our community It doesn't take away those memories, but it does take away those opportunities Absolutely for you and your family and for a lot of people movie going as a family thing Yep, and when we all get into a room together and we engage in that same story We let go of a lot of things and we let go of all of those things together And and it's really cool to see us come together in real life Not that being in the movie theater isn't real life But in the light and we come together and we say hey this experience is so important to us We're gonna write to you commissioners We're gonna write to you all at once and we're gonna tell you this really needs to stay in our community There's not so many opportunities to tell your community leaders that to do all St. John's County reach out to the commissioners and Sunray at I max