When the Madstone Theater opens tomorrow in the Briarwood Mall, the stale tang of construction and enamel-clouded air will be replaced by the smell of popcorn, snacks and commerce. The United Artists multi-plex is gone, and in its place is the forward-thinking by-product of co-CEOs of Madstone Inc., Tom Gruenberg and Chip Seelig.

By design, Madstone Theaters incorporate a different kind of cinematic experience for a different kind of moviegoer. Instead of the mainstream popcorn flicks that used to be in the space, Madstone's theater will be a seven screen exhibition of independent, art adjacent, specialty and foreign films. The audience experience will be augmented by the company's different take on all things movie-going.

"It's going to be a lot more subtle, sophisticated and kind of chill," said Dave Anderson, VP, Field Marketing & Publicity.

Madstone Theaters feature a concierge desk, the type of luxury usually reserved for hotels and resorts. The concierge will provide information on the films holding at the cinema, hold tickets for late-arriving friends, make restaurant reservations for Madstone patrons and aid customers with the purchase of Madstone Theater membership passes.

Tomorrow, the Madstone Theater at Briarwood will begin a weekend-long free movie marathon designed to introduce movie-goers to the theater. The seven films showing during this opening weekend will be Orson Wells' "Citizen Kane," last year's surprise French hit "Amelie," Lawrence Kasdan's "The Big Chill," Woody Allen's "The Purple Rose of Cairo," "Roger and Me," "American Beauty" and Sam Raimi's cult-hit "Evil Dead 2." This weekend's free movie festivities serve as a gearing-up for Madstone's grand opening on Sept. 20. Passes are available online at www.madstonetheaters.com.

A different kind of theater

Just as a restaurant's success is determined by a dynamic mix of both its atmosphere and food, Madstone Inc. understands the importance of atmosphere in a cinema. In fact, they take the construction of a positive atmosphere to heart when opening one of the Madstone Theaters. The theater in Briarwood is the seventh the company has bought, retrofitted, rebuffed and reopened under the Madstone "M."

Instead of a company with a focus on dollars and cents, the Madstone company seeks only to bring the best possible films to audiences - these films could be anything from Wes Anderson's "The Royal Tenenbaums" to the generally-accepted-as-a-classic "Citizen Kane" (which the theater will screen this weekend as part of its free movie festivities).

In addition to its desire to show only the best cinema in independent, foreign, art adjacent and specialty films, Madstone Theaters seek to create an environment not only conducive to film lovers' experience within the cinema, but also to creating conversation outside it.

One feature that will surely facilitate conversation from Madstone patrons is the alternative concessions offered by the theater. In addition to standard movie-going fare, (popcorn, soda, candy) Madstone Theaters offer something a little more eclectic to enjoy during the film. "We'll have imported chocolates, smoothies, frappuccino, baked goods and sandwiches," said Anderson.

Gruenberg, 25-year movie industry veteran is highly focused on the relationships between audience and screen. Gruenberg's focus led Madstone Theaters to integrate a different kind of seating for a handful of their theaters. Walk-Thru seating, as Gruenberg coined it, is designed to "give people a comfort zone so that they can sit down in a movie theater, and if they have to get up, they're not going to disturb anyone."

To create Walk-Thru seating, Madstone removed 20% of their seating in a theater and then re-spaced all of the seats in new rows. The result: A theater with plenty of leg-room and comfort, a theater where someone walking in front of seated patrons with an armload of popcorn and brownies isn't going to bother them, or in most cases, even touch them. "When someone walks in front of you and disturbs you," said Gruenberg, "it breaks that relationship between film and seat, which is what we don't want." Two of the seven theaters in the Briarwood Mall feature Madstone's Walk-Thru seating.

What to see,

what to see

The downtown Ann Arbor theaters, the Michigan and State, show a variety of independent and foreign films, and the Madstone Theaters look to form an interconnected market with them instead of a competitive one, "We look at them as an ally," said Gruenberg. "It is all about offering good storytelling to the audience, and they're doing great work and we have to do good work too."

Madstone doesn't seek to steal business from the popular downtown theaters, but instead seeks to increase the number of quality films being shown in Ann Arbor. This augmentation is geared toward people who love movies, not popcorn.