Split screens

Joel Landy, owner of Cass City Cinema, is a blond-mopped hippie built like a noodle; his thick mustache completely encloses his lips, and his hands are discolored in a car-mechanic-for-life kind of way (he was for 25 years) that suggests he's not kiddin' around when he says he's a workhorse.

The 59-year-old Landy owns the 36,000-square-foot Burton International School. Not long after he purchased the place, in 2009, he rented it to the gents behind the Burton Theatre, a crew of four whose vision was to open an eclectic movie house. It was a good use of the space, it was good for the Cass Corridor, and, besides, Landy says, the building was set to be demolished after years of inactivity.

But the relationship between Landy and the Burton group soured, and, last May, the enigmatic art house, which sits in the former school's auditorium, closed after an 18-month run.

"We loved the Burton space and wanted to keep our operation there, but unfortunately couldn't continue to operate without being able to negotiate a long-term lease," says Jeff Else, one of Burton Theatre's organizers, in an e-mail. "After operating in good faith for eight months on a verbal agreement proposed by Joel Landy ... [he] submitted to us a draft lease in an amount roughly twice that of the original agreement. ... We could not negotiate any compromise between the two amounts, and so chose to cease operations in the space. Further, we had a vision for the theater and the space that could not be realized with the limitations imposed by the building ownership."

The Burton is basically relocating to Corktown, under a new name.

Landy, who didn't comment much on the split except to say the two parties couldn't agree to a lease, says he was pleased the Burton sustained operations for as long as it did. 

Landy, a high school dropout who earns his living as a property owner and landlord (four schools and nearly 50 other buildings in the Burton School's immediate area, he says), quietly reopened the theater Halloween weekend with a new name, crew and outlook.

Cass City Cinema (the name reprises a popular Detroit independent film series of the '70s and '80s) is looking to continue the fresh cinema experience for Detroit established by the Burton Theatre, but with broader programming (mixing Hollywood and art house fare), a new screen (theater No. 2 is under construction in the basement gymnasium) and an upgrade to the overall setup, including surround sound. 

To open as the Cass City, Landy went out and purchased enough state-of-the-art equipment to rival almost any AMC or Emagine.

"I like to call this 'the theater eBay built,'" he teases, rattling off a laundry list of capabilities in the theater's new equipment.

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