Lantana draws families with free films, popcorn at makeshift drive-in
Liam Bingham, 6, of Boca Raton, dozes on the hood of the family car during Lantana’s showing of How to Train Your Dragon in January. The second and final movie of the season will be Jurassic World: Rebirth on Feb. 27. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Ron Hayes
The nation’s curmudgeons will no doubt grumble that any drive-in movie theater showing only two movies a year hardly deserves to be called a drive-in theater at all.
About 150 mothers, fathers, friends and children — lots and lots of children — who drove in to Lantana’s Sports Park on Friday evening, Jan. 9, to watch a movie under the stars would disagree.
In its own humble way, the town of Lantana is keeping alive a once great American tradition. Each January and February, the town hosts a “Drive-In Movie Night,” a free movie on an inflatable, 33-foot screen.
Free popcorn, too. All you can gobble.
A girl sits on top of the family vehicle to watch How to Train Your Dragon at Lantana’s Sports Park.
January’s movie was How to Train Your Dragon, last year’s live-action remake of the 2010 animated feature about Hiccup, a Viking boy who befriends a wounded dragon, named Toothless, and learns about friendship, bravery and acceptance.
Cars began arriving to watch Hiccup and Toothless swoop, dip and dive through the skies well before the 7 p.m. showtime.
Lantana residents Ari Georges and Carlie Matula enjoy a charcuterie board in the back of a pickup during the movie.
Ari Georges and Carlie Matula of Lantana were not content with free popcorn.
They waited for the show to begin nestled in the bed of their Ford F250 pickup with a large platter of homemade charcuterie between them.
“We saw the flyer and it sounded like fun,” Matula said, “so we went to Aldi and bought five different cheeses, salami, prosciutto, capicola and pine berries.”
Camille Bingham of Boca Raton was poking around Facebook when she happened on an announcement for the event.
“I have five kids and four are here,” she explained. “With five kids, I’m always looking for something free and fun.”
Marcus Freeman brought his son Makai, 7, and daughter Kaliyah, 10, down from Jupiter after finding the movie night listed on EveryParent (everyparentpbc.org), a resource guide sponsored by the Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County.All were here for the first time.
Family-friendly films
A little after 7 p.m., Nadine Shawah, Lantana’s Parks & Recreation superintendent, welcomed the crowd.
“Tonight’s radio frequency,” she announced, “is 88.3 FM. Tune to that station on your car radio and you can hear the movie in your car.
“Have a great night and enjoy the movie.”
Lantana movie nights debuted in 2015, with the films shown on a screen facing the ocean from Lantana Municipal Beach park until winds drove them to Bicentennial Park in 2019.
COVID-19 darkened the screens in 2020. Both the January and February showings were canceled because of bad weather that year. One film was shown in Bicentennial Park in early March, but the second never appeared when the shutdown was announced.
The movies returned a year later, with orange cones in every other parking space to promote social distancing. The cones remain so folks can set up chairs beside their cars.
With the move to the Sports Park, Lantana movie nights had become drive-in movie nights.
Presented by a company called Fun Flicks, the evenings cost the town about $2,000 for each presentation.
“Once a film comes out on DVD, we’re able to show them,” Shawah said.
Fun Flicks erects the screen and projects the film, but Shawah chooses the titles.
“We’ll show a PG-13 film,” she explained, “but I screen them first and check the kids’ review sites that show us ratings for families and tell us what’s in them. I want to be sure there’s not violence.”
How to Train Your Dragon is rated PG.
“We get couples and families with kids,” she said. “Our most popular are the Disney and superhero movies, and the Star Wars Trilogy.”
Katherine Reich-Brill of Lake Worth Beach brought her daughter, Ayla, 7, some chocolate chip cookies, and popcorn.
This was her first time, too. She didn’t know about the free popcorn.
“I figured I’d bring my daughter,” she said. “I don’t think she’s ever seen a drive-in movie. Growing up, our dad would take us to the drive-in movies. Now you can’t find them anymore. So, it’s nostalgia.”
Alas, it has to be.
Origin of drive-ins
If you have fond memories of childhood nights at the drive-in, bless the memory of Richard Hollingshead. Or maybe his mother.
“His mother was — how shall I say it? — rather large for theater seats,” Jim Kopp of the United Drive-In Theatre Owners Association told Smithsonian magazine in 2008. “So, he stuck her in a car and put a 1928 projector on the hood of the car, and tied two sheets to trees in his yard.”
Five years later, on June 6, 1933, Hollingshead opened America’s first drive-in, in Camden, New Jersey. Tickets were 25 cents, and the movie was Wives Beware, a British comedy starring Adolphe Menjou as a man who fakes amnesia to cheat on his wife.
The idea took off. Admission was cheap. You could smoke in your car. Your crying baby didn’t bother others. By 1958, there were 4,063 drive-ins across these United States.
Where did they go, all those drive-ins?
Color TVs. DVRs. Indoor movies could host five or six showings a day; drive-ins only one. Indoors got the most popular titles; drive-ins got the B films. As the suburbs spread, land prices rose, and the moms and pops who tended to own drive-ins couldn’t afford the land to build more.
When Kopp spoke to Smithsonian in 2008, only about 400 drive-ins were still operating. Today, there are about 320, according to the website driveinmovie.com.
In 1955, Florida had about 150 drive-in theaters. Today, only four survive, in Lakeland, Dade City, Ocala and Ruskin.
In Palm Beach County, the Delray Beach Drive-In, 2001 N. Federal Highway, opened in 1956 and closed in 1992, according to the website.
The West Palm Beach Drive-In at 1140 Old Dixie Highway opened in 1951 and went dark in 2002.
Belle Glades’ Lakes Drive-In, 1391 N. Main St., lasted from 1962 to 2003.
The Lake Worth Swap & Shop Drive-In at 3438 Lake Worth Road opened in 1967 and survived until 2021.
Now only the Lantana Drive-In Movie Nights survive. Two nights only, two months a year.
Anna Goris, owner of the Gimme Grillin food truck, serves customers at Lantana’s Sports Park during the town's Drive-In Movie Night in January.
Thumbs up all around
While the dragons swooped and dipped, moviegoers wandered over to the Gimme Grillin food truck, the Kona Ice shaved ice truck. Most popular, naturally, was Lamar Venegas’ popcorn machine. Venegas works for the town’s Public Works Department but was drafted to be the night’s popcorn man.
“I’ve gone through about 15 8-ounce bags,” he reported.
Enrique Padilla, 14, was back for another bag.
“This is great,” he said. “I saw the cartoon version, but this is the first time I’m seeing the live action version. I’d love to come back and see another movie here.”
By 9:30, Hiccup and Toothless had vanquished the dragon called Red Death and shown that dragons and Vikings can be friends. The parking lot lights came on, the popcorn machine went dark, and cars drove out of the drive-in.
In the bed of their Ford pickup, Ari Georges and Carlie Matula lay wrapped in blankets, the platter of leftover charcuterie between them.
“We kind of fell asleep at the end there,” Matula confessed. “I’m 22 now, and I saw the original when it came out in 2010 when I was 8. It brought back a lot of memories.”
Her sleepy friend agreed.
“It was a great movie and a good atmosphere,” Georges said. “This brought everyone together. Jurassic World is one of my favorites, so I’m definitely coming next month.”
Jurassic World: Rebirth (PG-13), Lantana’s second and final Drive-In Movie Night of 2026, will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 27, at the Sports Park, 903 N. Eighth St.
If You Go
What: Lantana’s drive-in movie featuring Jurassic World: Rebirth
When: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 27
Where: Sports Park, 903 N. Eighth St.
Cost: Free
Information: Arrive early and bring a battery-operated radio for the sound if you don’t want to drain your car battery. 561-540-5754; lantana.org
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