For Bill Hanney, It's All About Entertainment

Bill Hanney has loved movies since he was sweeping up customer trash at 14 in his native Dorchester and getting paid in movie posters. By 19, he owned and managed Boston-suburb theaters offering movies, live music, and, not long after, touring Broadway shows.

Decades later — and he won’t say how many — Hanney’s convinced combining those types of entertainment in one place will be how to reinvent the business post-COVID and keep all three thriving. The part-time Brewster resident is taking that gamble with a unique plan to renovate the movie theater at the Cape Cod Mall in Hyannis into a multi-use Bill Hanney’s Entertainment Experience. The hoped-for tagline: “Meet you at the X.”

Construction is due to start in early 2025, with no decision as of an early-November interview about whether some theaters could stay open during the work. The new complex is due to have up to nine movie screens, including an IMAX option, with recliner-style seating in most theaters; a two-story theater for live shows, with up to 1,000 seats; a 150- to 200-seat cabaret space; and a 100-seat comedy club.

The spaces would be flexible for hosting movies, various live entertainment, or as rental event spaces at different times. An on-site kitchen and bar would provide pub-style food and drink for all. For the lobby, Hanney is considering weekend live music, TV screens for sports, and an adjacent outdoor gathering area.

“The plan is evolving, and it will evolve — in size and scope and placement — because I want to get it right,” Hanney says. “This has several different ways of bringing in lots of people at the same time to have a good time. People create the excitement.”

In past interviews with other outlets, Hanney mentioned a $4 to $5 million construction price, but the number is rising as plans coalesce. “We’re prepared for that to go up to $10 million, though,” he says, “so I’m not worried about it.”

The Hyannis site is one of dozens of movie and live theaters Hanney has bought and sold around New England over the years, with off-Cape media referring to him as an “impresario” and “entertainment mogul.” Hanney’s main home and office are in a renovated mill building in Easton, but he tries to spend most weekends on the Cape, where he’s had an oceanside home near Brewster’s Ellis Landing beach since 1990.

That was the same year he built the multi-screen theater that is now his Entertainment Luxury Cinemas in South Dennis. Items from his vast movie-poster collection decorate walls there after a recent renovation that included recliner seats in theaters, and sales of pub food and alcoholic drinks.

Many Saturday nights you can find Hanney there watching a pre-dinner movie. Eating out with friends is his main hobby, he says, whether it’s close to home at Ocean Edge resort — where he laughs in acknowledging his favorite meal is a hot dog and french fries at Linx Tavern — or farther afield. He doesn’t sit for long at the beach or anywhere: “I get bored pretty easily.”

Hanney, longtime president and now chairman of the board of Theatre Owners of New England, is often on the road because his business is so far-flung. He owns movie theaters in Edgartown, and his luxury chain — the theaters offering recliners, food, and alcoholic drinks — includes a four-screen theater in Falmouth, where brother Brian is his partner. Sister Linda runs cinemas in Leominster, and the chain includes multiplexes in Lebanon, N.H., and, as of August, the formerly shuttered Clarks Pond cinemas in South Portland, Maine.

By Thanksgiving or December, Hanney expects to reopen a once-closed “dine-in” eight-screen movie complex in Sturbridge, also overseen by brother Brian.

Looming largest is renovating the 50,000-square-foot Hyannis space under his 40-year lease with Simon Properties. He aims to have the movie theaters and, hopefully, cabaret spaces open by summer 2025. Creating the live-theater space — and its underground orchestra pit and dressing rooms — will take longer, with Hanney hoping to open in 2026.

Creating that would fulfill a longtime dream to bring Broadway-style shows from his other live theaters to Cape Cod. Hanney owns the 500-seat Theatre by the Sea in Wakefield, R.I. (since 2007) and 1,500-seat North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly (since 2010). He hopes to eventually add a live theater as part of an “Entertainment Experience” hybrid in South Portland.

In 2023, Hanney branched out as a co-producer of Broadway’s “The Shark Is Broken,” about the Martha’s Vineyard making of the “Jaws” movie. Play co-writer Ian Shaw starred as his father, actor Robert Shaw (shark hunter “Quint”). Hanney hopes to bring that show to the Cape and Islands, possibly next year.

When not working, Hanney clearly still enjoys the types of experiences his businesses offer. His conversations include mentions of movies he enjoys, shows he’s gone to, and restaurants and clubs he’s recently visited on the Cape, around Boston and New England, and in Las Vegas. He wants to support local businesses and says he's excited that the draw of his Hyannis complex could help other restaurant owners he knows in town.

Hanney radiates enthusiasm about his plans and the entertainment industry, but juggling so many projects is a lot. When asked if the Maine renovation might begin while the Hyannis complex is still being readied, Hanney laughs. “Oh God, no. I wouldn’t survive it.”