Toronto Underground Cinema to close next month; Metro Theatre to diversify into non-porn programming

The Toronto Underground Cinema announced it’ll shut its doors next month. Despite garnering impeccable indie cred and hosting guests like Adam West and festivals like Images, competition from nearby cinematic giants, the need for expensive upgrades and claims on the space from “another group” brought the theatre down, according to co-owner Alex Woodside, who spoke to the Toronto Star. But it seems the cinema gods are not totally cruel: the Metro Theatre, Koreatown’s sleazy stalwart of a porn theatre, is getting a full cleanup and will begin showing more sophisticated programming in the evening, courtesy of the Studio Film Group, the people behind Gerrard East’s Projection Booth cinema. (The daytime repertoire will remain adults-only.) [Toronto Star]