Inside the Abandoned Star Theatre: Taylor, Michigan

WARNING: Under no circumstances should you enter this property. By doing so you risk bodily harm and/or prosecution for trespassing on private property.

This abandoned movie theater in Taylor opened in 1989 as the Star Movie Theater; in an attempt to get more people to come to the movies, a re-vamp was created in 2010, which included a new name: The Spotlight Theater. It didn’t help. It closed for good in 2012.

The theater opened with eight screens and 3,000 seats. Its popularity called for two more screens to be added in 1995. The Star was owned by the Jack Loek theater chain and was taken over by AMC in 2005. After four years, AMC shut it down in 2009.

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Surprise! Six months later they re-opened as the Spotlight Theater...as already mentioned, a new name and a six-month hiatus didn’t help. It permanently closed in 2012.

Star Theaters were based in Michigan, they had the outside appearance of a giant old-fashioned jukebox, had great service, numerous screens, and some of them had stadium-style seating. Movie-goers were more apt to go to a mall theater or megaplex like the Star Theaters, instead of one of the single-screen theaters found on a downtown main street. This was Star Theaters’ heyday.

Then - as with many theaters - internet downloads, home DVDs, Netflix, etc. all killed many people’s desires to get their butts off the couch, get dressed, drive a number of miles to a theater, spend outrageously-hiked admission prices, breathe somebody’s bad breath, and get cramped in a theater seat. Many movie houses were closed and abandoned in the 2000s.

The gallery below takes you inside the abandoned Star (Spotlight) Theater in Taylor, Michigan...