JOE: This was a very grungy building in very bad repair. You can see that this is the new building, built essentially on the footprint of the old building. Oh, I think that it's quite a transformation. (Voiceover) I think there's a very good fit between having movie theaters downtown. First thing, we don't--a good synergy because our parking requirements are mostly in the evening when theirs are greatly diminished or non-existent. It's a very good fit in that regard. And there's no question we're feeding--people come downtown to go to movies and go to restaurants and so on. So we're bringing some nightlife to a town that would have closed up and been very dead at night.

Unidentified Man #1: It's going to be $4.98.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) The Triplex is a boutique, one location with three screens.

Unidentified Man #2: Two for "The Opposite Of Sex," please.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) Just as any small shop avoids carrying the same items one can find in the big department stores, the triplex avoids running the films moviegoers could find at the big chains.

RICHARD: A year and half down the road we realized that a large operator like we had managing this theater wasn't really in touch as much as we would like with the community and wasn't doing the kind of programming that we thought was appropriate for this community.

HATTIE: In other words, you really were operating more as the realtor and letting them run the business, as opposed to running the business.

RICHARD: Yes. Yes.

HATTIE: And that piece of truth could transfer to other industries, other businesses. If you want to put the puzzle pieces together in place, you can. Let someone else run it.

RICHARD: You don't need to own anything to be successful in business. You need to control whatever you need to control. And really, in a way, that's always been what business has been about. People have tried to control every element of their business, but there are different ways to do it. The old model was, `If you own everything, you can really control it.' And big companies thought that was the only way to get good quality control, get good production control, was to own everything, and you could tell everybody what to do and things would flow downhill. And certainly, that's not the model for the '90s or going forward.

JOE: We were pretty hands-off, initially, and then we just felt we weren't maximizing the potential of this theater and that we weren't feeding the audience that we thought we had. So when we had an opportunity to break our contract with them, we elected to do so. I don't think they were unhappy to have it happen because we were a thorn in their side, a small theater, and they were expanding rapidly, and they needed us like they needed, you know, a hole in their head.

HATTIE: So bigger is not always better?

RICHARD: Oh, absolutely, bigger is not always better. Smarter is always better.

HATTIE: OK. And...

RICHARD: ...and more targeted. You got to know your customer. You got to be in the marketing business, not in the sales business.

HATTIE: So you and Joe don't say, `Oh, we'll choose the movies now.'

RICHARD: No. The first thing we do, before we decided to split the blanket, was shop around for a booker that would have an understanding of this market and...

HATTIE: Is a booker the same as a management company?

RICHARD: Not at all. A booker is simply somebody that buys movies for your theater.

HATTIE: OK, so you made a decision, you and Joe, that you didn't need a management company anymore, you would get a booker, and then you would hire somebody like Alex.

RICHARD: To manage it.