Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, and Mike Schulz in the Donna Reed Auditorium of The Last Picture House (photo by Todd McGreevy)
As a dyed-in-the-wool cinephile, I love going to Iowa City's downtown FilmScene venues. I truly do. For just over a decade, FilmScene has been the only option within reasonable driving distance for acclaimed independent and foreign works, to say nothing of older specialty and repertory titles, that tend to not show up in the Quad Cities, and nearly film for film, your fellow patrons want to enjoy the communal nature of moviegoing alongside others who also relish that increasingly uncommon experience. (On several occasions, I've enjoyed post-screening conversations about whatever we just watched with people I'd never before met.) Even when I don't like, or downright loathe, a FilmScene offering, I'm always happy to make the trip. I also wish the trip didn't require a two-hour commute.
Enter Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the acclaimed filmmakers and Bettendorf natives whose new two-screen theater The Last Picture House (located at 325 East Second Street in downtown Davenport) is currently presenting a soft launch, and will enjoy its grand-opening celebration on Friday, December 9. Thirty-nine-year-old best friends whose area production company Bluebox Limited released a number of wonderful indies and landed its co-founders a development deal with MTV Films, Beck and Woods – who, alongside their spouses, share residencies in Iowa and Los Angeles – boast a writing/directing filmography that includes the 2015 freakout Nightlight, 2019's horror outing Haunt, and this past spring's science-fiction thriller 65 starring Adam Driver. As screenwriters, they also delivered (with Mark Heyman) a hit Stephen King adaptation in this summer's The Boogeyman, as well as (with John Krasinski) an unassuming little aliens-invade trifle in 2018's A Quiet Place, which netted $341 million against a $17 million budget, led to two sequels (the second one arriving in 2024), and scored Beck and Woods a nomination for a Writers Guild of America Award.
Clearly, these deservedly lauded homegrown talents are In Demand, which makes it all the more impressive and special that they would dedicate time, money, and resources to giving the Quad Cities what we've sorely lacked: a beautiful, conveniently located establishment devoted to the collective moviegoing experience that will provide, as Beck and Woods insist, something for everyone, and on a weekly basis.
On November 19, River Cities' Reader publisher Todd McGreevy and I were kindly granted a tour of the new venue that came into being with the aid of Beck's and Woods' partners Pete Stopulos, Jens Baker, Julia Glausi, and Scott's wife Christy Beck. The filmmaking duo also shared information and recollections as we covered both Last Picture House floors and its rooftop. Their conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The Concept
Like many locals who craved a haven for fellow film fans, Beck and Woods spent much of the early-to-mid-2000s at Rock Island's two Brew & View venues founded by Devin Hansen. By 2006, however, both venues had closed, and the area was without an establishment that housed specialty titles and screenings of older movies until 2013. And even then, that venue – Iowa City's FilmScene – was nearly an hour's drive from the Quad Cities.
Scott Beck: We were interested in having the social aspect of cinema come back. And so when we were originally coming up with the idea for the Last Picture House, it was like, how do we make cinema-going a non-transactional experience? Meaning, you're not just going in to see a movie, buying your concessions, and getting out: How do we make it an experience that feels communal? We wanted to do something that harkened back to growing up here in the Quad Cities – seeing a movie with our friends on a Friday night and being able to really engage in a conversation about what we just saw. And do that in a setting that has an artistic bent to it and caters toward people of all ages.
Our programming is certainly geared toward that. We'll show first-run movies, but also have repertory screenings and cult movies and classics and family films and late-night horror and grindhouse-type flicks. We're trying to paint with all the colors in our canvas to really make sure that it hits this degree of cinema that we loved living in L.A. for the longest time. We loved the Brew & View, and all the programming that Devin Hansen did there hit us like … . How old were we at the time?
Bryan Woods: It must have been high school.
Scott: Yeah, high school, college.
Bryan: I remember seeing a midnight screening of Fight Club there. And in the lobby, they'd have, like, Evil Dead 2 playing on their TV set. It was just a movie lover's place to go, and it's been sorely missed.
Scott: As far as we know, we're only the third quote-unquote “art-house cinema” in Iowa, behind FilmScene in Iowa City and The Varsity [Cinema] in Des Moines that just opened up. They've been incredible partners. [Executive director and co-founder] Andrew Sherburne and his team at FilmScene have been a great resource. It's been almost four years now that we've been in the process of making this happen, and they've been incredible partners in figuring out what's working, what's not working, and how we do this in the Quad Cities – which really only has Cinemark and the multiplex experience now, which is miles away from what we're trying to do in this space.
It's been a learning curve, but an exciting one for us, because we only know how to make movies. To exhibit movies is a totally different experience.
The Lobby and Concession/Lounge Area
With the Davenport venue located on the corner of Iowa Street and East Second Street and named after director Peter Bogdanovich's Oscar-winning 1971 debut The Last Picture Show, the Last Picture House boasts a sizable, inviting lobby featuring a curved bar and concessions area, as well as an array of comfortable seating options. Soon, it will also feature a wide variety of movie-themed artifacts ranging from props to posters to a lighting fixture that might require its own two hours to adequately appreciate.
Bryan: When this [entryway] is finished, there'll be this really cool shadow-box facade that'll be holding a bunch of different movie props – stuff that we've accrued over the years. Like, we've got the nail-floorboard step from A Quiet Place, which is from our own collection. But we'll also have all kinds of movie props from crew members and stuff that people are loaning us. That'll be everywhere in the theater, not just here. But this will be a feature of the entrance.
Scott: One of our favorite films growing up that was instrumental was [M. Night] Shymalan's Unbreakable. It was a movie that wasn't very well-regarded at the time, but now it's accrued this cult-classic status. So we have this Unbreakable clapper-board slate that's signed by Shymalan, Bruce Willis, Robin Wright, Sam Jackson, the DP … . So we'll have things like that. These neat, one-of-a-kind pieces we're going to have displayed on a rotating basis, and we'll hopefully complement the Figge somehow and find a way to do exhibitions here and also there.
On the wall, we'll have a big, illuminated Last Picture House sign. We'll have our marquee outside. And one of the pieces we're really excited about should be here by the end of the year: We'll have a 10-foot chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and it'll be made up of more than 100 individual pieces of glass that look like script pages. Bryan and I picked out our favorite pages from our favorite scripts and they'll be imprinted on the glass. So you can look at the chandelier and look for, like, a page from The Godfather, or Paddy Chayefsky's Network. Our interior designer showed us this idea, and we just ran with it.
We have a full concession stand, and a full cocktail lounge where we can host events. The lounge will be open even if you're not seeing a movie, as a place to just hang out if you want to grab a drink. And we have these posters that will start to get hung up this week. Bryan and I have accumulated this collection of vintage posters … .
Bryan: They're all originals.
Scott: We have The Birds. All That Heaven Allows from the late-'50s. Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. Wizard of Oz. Field of Dreams – we absolutely had to have that one. And then we've got The King of Comedy – one of our favorite Martin Scorsese movies. So like with the props, this'll be a rotating exhibit. As we acquire more, this place kind of becomes the home for them.
Bryan: We're trying to get them from different countries, too. We've got Japanese posters, French posters, Polish posters … .
Scott: I don't know if you're familiar with Polish movie posters, but they're the most off-the-wall designs. Like if it's Robocop, it's not going to look like a metallic cop in a suit. It's going to look like the strangest piece of art where you have to cock your head and you're not sure what you're looking at – but it's beautiful. We have a Polish poster of The Last Picture Show, which is kind of our namesake, that we'll be putting up pretty soon.
The Auditoriums
Roughly 200 patrons can find seating between the Last Picture House's two auditoriums – each named after an Iowa-native film star – at any given time, the theaters themselves showcasing state-of-the-art sound and projection systems along with wide, high-backed seats. In the case of Studio One, there are front-row reclining chairs and balcony seating, with the black-and-deep-red color scheme and pleated wall designs arresting even when nothing is showing on-screen.
Scott: Studio Two is the smaller of our two theaters. It seats, I think, 48, and we're calling this the Jean Seberg Theater, after the actress from Iowa. Her career always had a slight bent toward independent cinema – so with the smaller, more intimate space, we thought she would be a nice namesake. It's outfitted with 7.1 audio gear and laser projection, which we have in both auditoriums.
We'll be rotating movies in and out, whether it's repertory films or some of our first-runs, depending on what we're screening. Independent film is definitely a focus – getting films that don't typically screen in the Quad Cities. I remember when Parasite came out in 2019 and I was trying to find a place to see it here and it wasn't at the Cinemark, and I'm like, “God, that's so frustrating!” I had to drive either to Iowa City or Chicago to see it.
And Studio One is our larger theater. The namesake for this one is Donna Reed, because she had mainstream success and was also an Iowa actor, and the capacity is about 150 between the main floor and the balcony.
Bryan: It's outfitted with Dolby Atmos, which the Cinemark doesn't have – it's like the best sound in the area. Sound is so important to us. It sounds phenomenal in here.
Scott: One of our early industry contacts here was the sound designer Mac Smith. He's worked at Skywalker Sound for over two decades.
Bryan: We met him when we were teenagers. We were P.A.s on this movie that was shot in the area called Iowa Boys, and that was the first kind of big movie Scott and I worked on, and we met Mac. He's done some of our movies and has always impressed on us the importance of sound.
Scott: Mac worked with us on 65 and Haunt, and he's a great Midwest guy – he's from Nebraska. When we were figuring out how to do the sound, we knew we wanted the best sound possible, because that's as important as picture, if not more so. He was like, “You have to go with Dolby Atmos.” And walking in here today – because we've been gone for the last three months – I can't even count how many speakers are in here. But it sounds incredible.
Our whole thing was: How big a picture can we fit into this space? I think it was built around 1895, and it was like this boiler-manufacturing sales place, and then marine sales and auto sales throughout the years. So our question was always: How do you fit the biggest picture possible in here? This screen is, I think, about 40 feet wide. And somewhat selfishly, I think, for Bryan and I, we love being immersed in a movie. So we were just like, “Let's go big.”
Bryan: You're always disappointed when the screen doesn't go wall to wall. It does in IMAX theaters, and I'm like, “Why is that only in IMAX theaters? Can't you go wall-to-wall in any theater?”
Scott: We joke that the first row is “the immersive row.” Because you're close up, but the seats recline, so you can sit back and kind of take in the whole screen. It's probably not for everybody … .
Bryan: We wanted to avoid the recliner seats everywhere else because, for us, recliners are a little too close to being in your own home. We love the kind of old-school seats where you're sitting together and it's a community experience, you know what I'm saying? We like feeling the audience as part of us.
Again, it might not be for everybody. But when I go to the Cinemark, which is a theater I love and go to all the time, they have these recliners and these, like, privacy walls. And for us, we want to be with the audience. I don't want to feel like I'm in my own little bubble. I can do that at home. So a big part of this is trying to bring that experience back, because it just doesn't seem to exist anymore.
Scott: There were two things we had in mind for the [auditorium's] color scheme. One, there's something just classic about red tied with cinema history. But we also didn't necessarily want to have all-red seats and make it feel like an old AMC or something where you could see popcorn stains.
We were also combining that with … Well, any time we're in a facility to finish a film, like a coloring facility where you're tweaking the final color, those are like black-box theaters, because you need to pay all your attention to the screen and have no visual distractions. No light leaking on the screen. So we wanted to find a balance between those two things, and our designers at Paradigm [Design] in Grand Rapids [Michigan] took those ideas and ran with them. They found what we felt was a really interesting blend of art deco meets modern – clashing those two things together and finding ways to accent them. And we definitely wanted to find a way to incorporate a balcony. We just love the old-school nature of balcony seating, and I think 40-some seats are up there. We also have our digital projector in the middle and then two 35-millimeter projection systems on both sides.
We also wanted to have a little bit of pop with the pleated pattern on the walls. Throughout the design process, which we really took the time on, there were versions where it was just normal patterns. But we wanted to make this feel like a unique place unto its own – that you haven't quite been to this place. As time goes on, our goal is to bring back special guests and filmmakers that have their own acclaim, and try to make a space that feels like a destination as much as we can. Part of that is community, part of that is what we're screening here. But part of it is also trying to do educational outreach, and just find a way to blend all of these goals we have under one roof. We want to make it feel really special.
The Building and Staff
A series of happy accidents and fortuitously timed meetings led to Beck's and Woods' discovery of their new venue's site, which led, in turn, to the Last Picture House finding a uniquely qualified film fan to serve as general manager.
Scott: It was kind of a crazy coincidence how we found this place. My wife Christy is a partner in this, and we were driving around downtown – this was back in early 2019 – and just had this idea: Wouldn't it be so cool to have a unique cinema in the Quad Cities? So we drove past this building, and at the time, I think the City of Davenport was storing golf carts in it or something. We thought it was such a cool building. It had the little roof covering, and we were like, “That would make a great outdoor-bar space!” We thought about it a few times, but never really actively pursued it.
I knew (Daytrotter and Raccoon Motel entrepreneur) Sean Moeller a little bit, and when we sat down for the first time in person, I was telling him, “Yeah, it would be great to figure out how to have an art-house movie theater here [in Davenport].” He filed that away in his brain, and I think it was a few months later that Bryan and I got a call from him, and he was like, “Hey, next time you're back in Iowa, meet me at this address. I want to talk to you about something.” He introduced Bryan and myself to Pete and Jens, and was like, “Pete and Jens just bought this building, and they're interested in hearing the idea that you have to turn this into a movie theater.” And so it was just this great Quad Cities connection and it steamrolled from there.
Of course, we then went through COVID, and there was that moment of “Are people going to go back to theaters? Can we safely return?” So it kind of went on pause for a moment. But then it was, I think, early 2022 that things started getting in motion again. And Pete's grandfather Jim Stopulos used to run movie theaters here in the Quad Cities. It's in his blood. So it was this wonderful confluence of interest and opportunity.
Our general manager Jameson [Ritter] is a projectionist, as well. He also worked the Sundance Film Festival, and was a GM at a movie theater in Telluride [Colorado]. We were lucky. He's a fantastic guy. When we were looking at applications, there was always the question of “Is there anybody in the Quad Cities that's gonna do this? Are there people from outside?” And we actually ended up having a lot of interest from people outside the state. We ended up flying Jameson here this summer and walked him through the space and our vision, and then he walked us through his vision for it. He's a huge cinephile and there was an immediate kinship there. But he also knows the nuts and bolts of filmmaking from working at the Sundance and Telluride Film Festivals, and was able to facilitate all those different hats that someone needs to wear for this job. Because it does have a lot of different components to it other than making sure the movies run on time.
So right now, we have two full-time employees, and a third as full-time from a bar-management standpoint. We have the GM Jameson, we have our assistant manager Carlie Allison, and we have our bar manager Alexa Parkin. Then we'll have a handful of concessions and usher staff, and that'll grow and flux with the seasons. In the summer seasonal months, we're hoping that the rooftop will be a big draw for people to come out, so I'm sure our staff will get bigger at that point.
The Rooftop
It'll likely be springtime when Last Picture House patrons can finally enjoy its benefits. But the rooftop boasts a reasonably expansive viewing area where films will be shown against a screen mounted on a brick wall, drinks can be consumed, guests can commune around a fire pit, and movie lovers can appreciate one of the Quad Cities' best views of the Mississippi River and beyond.
Scott: We have our screen that retracts and our speaker system and our bar set-up. We'll have a fire pit. And then the views of the Mississippi River and the Arsenal Bridge we were really excited by. So we'll open this up contingent on the weather – but probably, at the earliest, it'll be maybe April of next year. Unless we have a really mild winter. There are so many different ideas we have because it's a flexible space. You know, the first-run movies are great. But I think what we're most excited about is the specialty programming that we can do, and how to make this a communal experience. That's really the main focus for us: How do you inspire community through films and cinema?
Bryan: My wife and I, our wedding was a rooftop screening in Hollywood – that's where we got married. And in L.A., there's just so many beautiful rooftops events, and that's what sort of inspired this. It'll be a fun event space that people can rent out. Our being here will, of course, be dependent on our work schedule, but I know we're gonna wind up watching movies here all the time.
Scott: We're here for the foreseeable future, just to make sure everything is on track, and just to be able to be hands-on. Even if it's us putting on name tags again and sweeping popcorn – whatever needs to be done.
Bryan: Since the pandemic era of filmmaking, now a lot of stuff we do is remote. So our editor will be working in Canada, but we'll be piping in from here and L.A. or wherever. We'll actually get in rooms together for a week here, a week there. But it's nice to be able to kind of pull away and focus on things like this.
Scott: Our idea is that you can come up here to have a beer even if we're not screening anything. But when we do have films up here, it'll be older movies that we're screening off Blu-rays and such that we licensed from the studios. We really want to make it a casual environment. As far as we're concerned, we've got so many plans, and I'm sure we're not gonna get 'em all accomplished in the first year. But we'll start off introducing the place to the Quad Cities, and then, as time goes on, get experimental with some of the programming.
The Soft Launch and the Big Picture
Although the Last Picture House's grand opening is scheduled for Friday, December 9, the venue opened its doors early for a soft launch of “friends and family” screenings (also open to the public), with The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes in the Donna Reed theater and a themed series of past Last titles in the Jean Seberg. (On December 1, the venue will begin screening Priscilla, Stop Making Sense, and Anatomy of a Fall in addition to the Hunger Games prequel,) Those Last movies include The Last Black Man in San Francisco, The Last Dragon, The Last Supper, Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade … and a particular Arnold Schwarzenegger action vehicle from 30 years ago that, for Beck at least, held far more sway than an eventual Spielberg blockbuster. They're all part of Beck's and Woods' promise to deliver something for everyone.
Scott: We're doing a really soft opening. For everybody that's coming to work here at the theater, it's a new environment, and so we're just trying to figure out how everything comes together. But for Bryan and myself, it reminds us so much of making a movie. You get a whole bunch of people together, and by the end of it, you're family. But you have to go through the trials and tribulations of what's working and what's not working – and that's the magic spot for us. That's what we're used to.
Bryan: We basically made a list of all the movies with “Last” in their title, and then Scott and I picked a few that we were somewhat passionate about, and Jameson picked a lot of them, as well.
Scott: Jameson's tastes felt like a perfect way to triangulate what Bryan and I love and what Jameson loves. There's crossover, there's some overlap, and then there are some outside-the-box ideas. For us, with The Last Picture Show being one of our favorite films of all time and the theater's namesake, we knew that had to be the first film we screened. And then The Last Detail. I love that Hal Ashby film.
Bryan: We did a movie with Adam Driver (65), and The Last Duel is the Ridley Scott movie that Adam Driver was in, and not many people saw it. It's funnier than you expect, and it's a spectacle – it felt like something more people should see on the big screen.
Scott: And Last Action Hero … . In the summer of '93, the year Jurassic Park came out, there was only one movie I wanted to see, and it wasn't Jurassic Park. It was Last Action Hero.
Bryan: He's the only person I've ever met in my life who was more excited about Last Action Hero than Jurassic Park.
Scott: So my mom took me to the movie theater and I thought I was going to see Last Action Hero, and then she tells me, “We're going to see Jurassic Park!” And I'm like, “What the hell is that?! What does the word 'Jurassic' even mean?!” So I went to the theater and saw that and my mind was blown. And then I finally got to see Last Action Hero, but I never saw it on the big screen – until this coming week.
And we're showing FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which is going to be the start of our family-friendly screenings on Saturday mornings. We were inspired by the New Beverly [Cinema]. Quentin Tarantino always does a family screening on the weekends, and he usually precedes it with a cartoon and makes it a really incredible community experience. We felt like that's an important thing – to drive families into a love of cinema, and just be able to come out on a Saturday morning and keep it casual and easy. So we'll be doing that every weekend.
Again, we're trying to hit this sweet spot of there being something for everybody here. It's not just for cinephiles. It's not just for a certain community that wants to see art-house films or first-run films. It really should encapsulate everyone's interests.
With Scott Beck and Bryan Woods in attendance, the grand-opening celebration for The Last Picture House (325 East Second Street, Davenport IA) will take place on December 9, and more information is available by visiting LastPictureHouse.com.
For Todd McGreevy's article on The Last Picture House's construction and the recent transformation of Davenport's East Second Street, visit "Right Here in River City."
