Our Mission

A Step Back In Time

At CINEMANIACS, our mission is to restore and preserve the art, history, and community of physical media stores while providing a nostalgic reminder of the need for real physical interations over digital doomscrolling and isolation. In a world increasingly shaped by endless scrolling, algorithmic recommendations, and rising streaming prices, CINEMANIACS is our answer. It's our goal to recreate the space that streaming took from us when the video store left our culture. That’s why CINEMANIACS is built around three core experiences designed to bring back the magic of physical media, popcorn movie nights, and real community connection. We invite donors, volunteers, and fellow film lovers to join us in this mission—to help us build a space where cinema is celebrated, preserved, and shared.

Because at CINEMANIACS, we believe the video store left too early.

And maybe, just maybe... it’s time to bring it back.

Step one:
popcorn & kettle corn

Step two:
building the collection

Step Three:
opening the doors

Our first step is operating CINEMANIACS LLC as a popcorn shop, serving fresh popcorn, kettle corn, and specialty flavors to our community.

Sales from popcorn, merchandise, and snacks help support the long-term vision of CINEMANIACS Movie Club, our future nonprofit video store dedicated to preserving physical media and building community. Every bag of popcorn you buy helps bring us one step closer to opening the doors to CINEMANIACS popcorn shop & video rental store!

We’re actively working to build a community-powered film collection, starting with accepting donations of physical media including VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Ultra HD. These donations help us preserve films that are increasingly difficult to find in the streaming era. Financial donations are also welcome and can help us acquire films that are meaningful to our community—including rare titles, cult classics, forgotten gems, and important works of cinema history. Supporters can also contribute by purchasing CINEMANIACS merch on our website, which helps fund the growth of the collection. Our goal is to build a library that reflects the tastes and passions of the community itself—not an algorithm.

As the CINEMANIACS community grows, the next step is establishing Cinemaniacs Movie Club, a nonprofit (501c3) dedicated to preserving physical media and rebuilding the sense of community that once surrounded the neighborhood video store. This nonprofit will operate as a membership-based physical media library and movie club, where members can explore, borrow, and discover films from our growing collection of VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Ultra HD titles. Members will gain access to the collection, participate in club events, and help shape the direction of the library. We plan to gather community support, find sponsors and donors, and finally launch a crowdfunding campaign to help fund the next stage of CINEMANIACS: securing a physical storefront in Brownwood, Texas.

More than just a place to buy popcorn & soda, and rent movies, CINEMANIACS aims to become a "third space" gathering spot for movie lovers, where you can grab a seat and hang out, browse shelves of physical media, fill up on popcorn, discover new films, and spend time connecting with others who love cinema as much as you do.

Step four:
the "micro theater"

The final step in our vision is the creation of a micro theater, inspired by community film spaces like We Luv Video and Movie Madness. This small screening room will transform CINEMANIACS into a full-fledged community cinema hub. It will also allow the people of Brownwood and the surrounding towns to have a small theater to rent out for their own events or private film screenings.

Through the micro theater, we plan to host:

Film screenings
Themed movie nights
Book-to-film adaptation clubs
Member events
Community discussions and film appreciation gatherings

These events will help bring together movie lovers from every niche and background—creating the kind of shared cinematic experiences that streaming simply cannot replicate.