If you're looking for the right wine to quaff with your popcorn, Surdyk's wine manager Andy Hall recommends something along the lines of a Spanish red or a Riesling with apple and pear flavors. If you favor Raisinettes, he suggests a fruit-forward Chilean cabernet.

Matching the right vintage to concession-stand grub is an unfamiliar option for moviegoers. But full bars are just one of the new amenities as a new breed of posh multiplex enters the Minnesota market. From St. Michael, Minn., to the Mall of America, film exhibitors are entering one of the most ambitious construction phases since the Cinerama era of the 1950s.

The reason remains the same: competition from new technology. A half-century ago, theater owners erected ultrawide screens to lure back audiences enticed by TV. Today they face threats on multiple fronts. Online sites iTunes, Amazon.com and Hulu stream millions of videos on demand every month. Widescreen TVs, surround-sound speakers and high-definition discs offer a premium viewing experience in home theaters. A new report from market researcher NPD Group shows that $8 out of every $10 spent on movies goes to buying and renting DVDs.

Theater owners in Minneapolis and St. Paul, the nation's 15th-largest film market, are feeling the heat.

"Especially in a down economy, those new forms of entertainment are forcing theater owners to play their best game," said Hugh Wronski, manager of Landmark Theatres' Twin Cities operations. At his Uptown, Edina and Lagoon theaters, that means attention to presentation, such as new bulbs for projectors, an attentive staff and films carefully selected for the audiences they serve.

Others are more ambitious, installing new projection systems, upgraded sound, "VIP auditoriums," imaginative decor and seating akin to airline first-class. Theater giant AMC is adding Imax 3-D digital projection systems to more than 100 theaters nationwide, including its Southdale and Rosedale locations.

"It's important to offer audiences something different from what they can get at home," said AMC's corporate communications manager, Andy DiOrio.

Steve Tripp, CEO of Minneapolis-based CineMagic Theatres, which operates seven upscale multiplexes around the state, is investing in those cutting-edge technologies. It offers Imax at its St. Michael 15-plex and twin 70-foot-wide "Superscreens" at its new theater in Burnsville.

Tripp is also fighting back by taking cues from the hospitality industry, creating flamboyantly decorated entertainment destinations where customers can enjoy a meal or sip a martini while watching the latest James Bond adventure.

Theaters Mall of America, the former AMC property being refurbished by the mall owners, is following suit. The multiplex is adding two 3-D digital projection systems, larger and plusher seats, food and full bar service, and real butter on its popcorn.

There will even be a 21-and-older VIP auditorium, with uniformed servers taking food and drink orders and delivering them on plastic trays half an hour before the feature begins. The theater will add a $2 ticket surcharge for that 170-seat hall. The mall will relaunch the facility with a grand reopening party on Friday.

Poseidon, god of popcorn?

CineMagic's new 15-screen Burnsville Center complex will add a full bar and sit-down restaurant in a few weeks. Even now, it's clear that the Atlantis is no mere shoebox theater. The foyer is an eruption of Art Nouveau extravagance evoking an underwater world, with a towering statue of Poseidon looking down on patrons from the lobby mezzanine. It's a far cry from the sterile 1970s-style "cookie cutter multiplex," as Tripp calls it.

One Burnsville moviegoer, Robbye True, appreciates the shift in values for practical and esthetic reasons.

"Most of the fancy theaters have stadium seating, which for a small person like me is genius," she said. "You don't have to be worried about sitting behind a huge, hulking fat guy." A photographer who describes herself as a "beauty snob," True said "the world around us is gorgeous. Why shouldn't movie theaters be?"

Opulence comes at a cost, CineMagic's Tripp admits: "It's expensive in today's market to build these buildings, and they require more staff to run the additional services. But when you're competing with home entertainment and downloads, you need to offer something they can't get at home."

At the chain's Parisian-themed theater in St. Michael, which includes French cobblestone streetscapes, a replica of a Paris Metro subway station surrounding the concession area, a scaled replica of the Moulin Rouge and game rooms for youngsters. One of its Rochester locations is a celebration of Hollywood glamour; the other is a turreted castle.

So far, CineMagic's approach is succeeding. After five weeks, the Burnsville Atlantis boasted the highest box-office grosses of any nearby theater despite charging slightly less than the $9 Twin Cities average ticket price. Exhibitors make almost all of their profits from concession sales, and those have been strong as well, Tripp said.

"At 'Sex and the City' with the women, I can't tell you the number of cosmopolitans we served" at St. Michael, he said.

Box office is rebounding

Nationwide, the push to 3-D films is gaining momentum in advance of the much-anticipated 2009 release of James Cameron's all-3-D sci-fi epic "Avatar." Next year's "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and "Shrek Goes Fourth" also will contain 3-D sequences.

Studios like 3-D films because their stereoscopic images can't be bootlegged by single-lens video cameras. Exhibitors like them because they can charge a $2.50 rental fee for the plastic spectacles that create the impression of depth.

While it's difficult to quantify the impact of plush new boutique cinemas on stay-at-home movie watching, the National Association of Theatre Owners points to strong box-office performance in 2006 and 2007, a year when DVD sales declined by more than 3 percent.

Location, demographics and population density determine what sort of theater will work best, Tripp said, The same factors account for boutique theaters blooming on the coasts years ago, before taking root in Minnesota.

"It starts in areas where you have a concentration of multimillion-dollar mansions," he said. "In a community like Hutchinson or Austin, you certainly can't pimp out a theater. The economics will not work in a market like that. But in a market like Burnsville, we felt that absolutely this is the way to go."

Colin Covert • 612-673-7186