After more than 40 years of showing movies at incredibly affordable prices, Dumaresq Street Cinema is coming to the end of the road.
The current operators are in talks with the owner of the site, Campbelltown City Council, seeking to get out early from the current lease.
Sources have told the South West Voice the cinema could show its last movie in about a month or so.
The complex first opened as Dumaresq Street Twin Cinema in 1981.
Mr Movies himself Bill Collins made the trek to Campbelltown to do the official honours alongside then mayor Guy Thomas.
That great Australian classic, Gallipoli, which was released that year, was shown on both screens as part of the official opening.
The cinema was run by council until it fell into hard times during the recession of the late 1980s.
It was closed for some time until it was taken over and operated – as a three screen cinema – by the great Campbelltown community man Ron Moore and his family.
Mr Moore, who was also known for the famous Minto hardware store, had a community centre in Minto named after him by Campbelltown Council.
In the next three decades Dumaresq Street Cinema became known as the people’s cinema because of the cheap prices compared to other theatres in Campbelltown, which charged almost three times as much per ticket.
“We have the lowest movie ticket prices on offer in the whole of Sydney.’’ That’s a phrase everyone in Campbelltown who has been to Dumaresq Street Cinema knows by heart.
Unfortunately, all things come to an end and now it seems like Dumaresq Street Cinema could be next.
The South West Voice contacted the cinema operators for comment, speaking to one member of the Moore family.
He was – understandably – reluctant to go on the record and confirm the imminent demise of what has been a Campbelltown institution for more than 40 years.