The only possible motivation would be if they were committing their programming schedule to older films that they can get on the cheap from a film rental company.
No studio or distributor is in the habit of creating 16mm prints of first-run films. No major chain uses 16mm as a projecting format for first-run films. If a theater does Sunday afternoon kiddie matinees and wants to rent The Yearling or Willie Wonka, then it’s more cost-effective to have a 16mm set-up on hand (although you’re likely to have an altered 1.33 aspect ratio for any post-1953 films).
Either that, or the theater hopes to use the screening facility for young filmmakers or school-related programming or something else along those lines (i.e. alternate programming efforts outside of first- or even second-run exhibition).
Hey guys, this shouldn’t turn into a discussion on 16 mm theater projectors. I knew that our local theater installed 16 mm equipment a long time ago and thought possibly that could explain poor quality in movies.
If 16 mm is only an alternative with 35 mm also on hand for general use fine, then my suggestion about a possible answer isn’t correct. No biggie.
Maybe it’s because modern “multi-plexes” are so small, that is, the projector is so much closer to the screen, that they don’t really need to use 35 mm?
(Sorry to keep discussing 16mm vs. 35mm, but I think it is relevant.)
In the late 80s and early 90s, when I worked in the field, most of the funny formats had shaken themselves out, leaving us with 35mm as king, with 70mm a distant second.
Our theater had 9 screens (a tiny one by modern standards), and they all had very standard 35mm Century projectors with Christie platters. One of our theaters had a fancier projector that could be switched over to 70mm by switching out a whole mess of parts that we kept in a cabinet. Since they were all identical equipment, we were able to do neat things such as run the same film in three theaters on three synchronized machines, threading it from the bottom of one machine, through a pully in the ceiling, and into the next machine in line.
In 35mm, there were really only two mainstream formats that we worked with at the time: “flat” and “Scope” or “anamorphic”. Our projectors had a two-lens turret that would swap lenses when the trailers ended and the feature begin if it was a Scope film.
The sheer number of theaters in the US encouraged standardization, so that a movie could easily be sent to thousands of screens on opening weekend. I find it hard to believe that there was a significant parallel 16mm infrastructure that would have been comparable to the infrastructure for 35mm film.
Now, for the OP… When I showed a brand new film, at the end of the 80s, it was spotless. I looked at enough films with a critical eye checking for flaws that I can say that a virgin film on opening day with a tuned projector and a new bulb looked as crisp and clear back then as it does today. Only when we got the occasional second run film did we see shoddy film. Those were usually full of splices, dirt, and the occasional scratch.