Marcus Lakes 10 Cinema in Hermantown closing Sunday, Duluth loses 10 screens

Hermantown is about to lose one of its long-running movie stops, and the Duluth area is set to have 10 fewer screens when Marcus Lakes 10 Cinema closes after Sunday’s showtimes at 4351 Stebner Road.

Marcus Theatres told loyalty members Thursday that Lakes Cinema would be showing movies for the final time on Sunday, April 19, 2026, and thanked the community for years of support. The closure leaves a gap on the western edge of the metro, where many families, teens and workers have relied on the Hermantown site for an easy night out without driving into downtown Duluth.

The company did not give a public reason for winding down the location. But in a market where moviegoing has been pressured by streaming, changing audience habits and higher operating costs, the decision points to the economics facing mid-sized theater chains. Even one theater closing can reshape the local entertainment map, especially in a region with a limited number of screens to absorb demand.

Marcus is steering customers toward Duluth Cinema at 300 Harbor Drive, where points and rewards from Marcus Movie Club and Magical Movie Rewards can still be used. That helps keep moviegoers inside the company’s loyalty system, but it does not replace the convenience of a neighborhood theater for Hermantown residents who used Lakes Cinema for family outings, date nights and weekend plans.

The closure also carries a ripple effect for nearby businesses that benefited when movie traffic spilled into surrounding restaurants, shops and parking lots. A theater shutdown is not just the loss of a ticket window; it is the loss of a steady stream of people who turned a film into dinner, dessert or a quick stop before heading home.

Lakes Cinema has been part of the local movie landscape for more than three decades. Cinema Treasures says the complex opened on December 10, 1993, as an 8-screen theater, later expanded to 10 screens and was taken over by Marcus Theatres in April 2007. The site includes six auditoriums with stadium seating and four with classic sloped seating, a mix that made it a familiar destination for generations of Twin Ports moviegoers.

For Hermantown, the closing is a practical loss as much as a sentimental one. One of the area’s longest-running entertainment anchors is disappearing, and the vacant questions left behind now extend beyond movies to what replaces the traffic, the spending and the everyday routines that built up around it.