I'm not familiar with Warren's effort to build a movie theater along Memorial Road on the north side of Oklahoma City, and in somewhat close proximity to Quail Springs Mall and the AMC 24-plex operating inside.

I thought a comparison was being drawn between the AMC site and the new Warren theater being built south of OKC, in Moore. It seemed a little like an "AMC is the best in town" sort of claim. Currently Harkins' Bricktown complex is Oklahoma City's best movie theater. But probably not for long. And the area's movie fans will benefit.

As to the health of Quail Springs Mall, I agree a new, lush and luxurious, all-THX Warren site just down the street from there has potential to be devastating to AMC's business and the mall in general.

However, I think the AMC theater there will still get a lot of traffic for a couple of reasons.

First, if both theaters are within a couple of miles of each other they won't be able to show the same movies. They'll be stuck in an allocation agreement system where film companies will have to divide their releases between both locations.

Some movie fans like myself are very discriminating on what we expect in show quality from a theater. Others don't seem to care.

In my neighborhood in the Lawton area, the Carmike 8 is by far the best place to see a movie. But more people go to the Central Mall theater with its tiny screens and lackluster presentation quality. Carmike is even going to convert all 8 screens to digital projection using Christie's new 3-chip 2K DLP CP2000 model. But lots of people will probably still drive to the mall because it's the closest theater.

More long term, Quail Springs Mall and most traditional shopping malls as we know them will eventually disappear.

Many merchants are preferring to build bigger stores either in standalone configuration or in large strip shopping centers with a limited number of big tenants.

Shopping malls have very limited space and tend to command very high rent prices. They're extremely limiting when it comes to movie theaters. The space is far too cramped and the ceilings are way too low. AMC was only able to build the Quail Springs 24 by adding a new structure and covering up the diagonal glass atrium that used to serve as the front of the mall.