“We want to be a center for everything that has to do with film,” he said. “We think that it’s kind of a missing piece in what could make Richmond a real film town.”

From the standpoint of taking risks with lesser-known or edgy films, the timing couldn’t be better, Rea said.

“I don’t know if anybody right now knows what the edges are of Richmond as a movie market,” he said. “My experience is from way back when, and it was hard to put over a lot of things in Richmond in the days of the Biograph. But if you look at what’s happened to Richmond, how much it’s blossomed arts-wise in the last 10-to-15 years, my guess is the chains have done very little to try to find out what is the limit, what can you show here and what won’t work.”

The plan is to start with films on Fridays and Saturdays and perhaps expand to Thursday evenings and Sunday matinees in the coming months. At some point, the theater will go dark for a few weeks to complete the “build-out” of the space and remove the current makeshift feel. But not yet. Rea, Parrish and Brown want to capitalize on the momentum they have coming into the grand opening.