Theater owner on new lease on life for venue: 'We really love it, and want it to be the best version possible'

Everyone loves a happy ending, especially the owner of a Brazoria County cinema that has received a new lease on life. 

Andrew Thomas is the proprietor of Wellborne Cinema Four Theater in Alvin. Houston NBC affiliate KPRC reported that the venue was in the throes of closure until the community it served for more than 50 years worked together to ensure it had a second wind. 

To say the theater is an Alvin institution is an understatement.

It was a part of Thomas' boyhood, according to the station.

“Even when I was a kid, this was the theater I came to," he told KPRC. "I saw the Little Mermaid with my mom and brothers."

About 30 years later since watching the teen mermaid Ariel try to win the heart of the human prince Eric, the station reported, Thomas inked a five-year lease extension for the property only for the COVID-19 pandemic to take root shortly afterward.

The film industry suffered immensely during the pandemic, putting theaters like Thomas's at the mercy of an unknown future.

Still, he spent the previous months making renovations.

“This theater is not just a business for us, my wife would always say it’s like our fourth child," Thomas told KPRC. "We really love it, and want it to be the best version possible.”

June 10 is when the theater will tentatively reopen, the station reported.

Thomas is grateful toward the people of Alvin for helping him every step of the way.

“They really want this to work,” he told the station. “It’s not just the theater. The thing that’s so heartwarming about it is that they care about our family specifically, so they want it to work out."