But with the novel coronavirus pandemic and the need for maintaining social distances, the few remaining drive-ins around the country suddenly found themselves the center of attention, providing an opportunity for some entertainment outside the home while staying safe.

In the past few months, the Marketplace Cinemas — an indoor theater that specialized in second-run movies — has reinvented itself, putting a screen on an outside wall, installing new equipment, and letting customers watch movies from the comfort and safety of their cars in the parking lot.

Daniel Kleeberg, the owner of the cinema, sees this as a long-term investment and plans to run movies — and occasional other special events, such as streaming concerts, into the winter as weather allows.

“Opening the drive-in was a lot of work, but a great experience,” Kleeberg said. “We are grateful to have been able to open and to bring our staff back. It is all thanks to our wonderful, supportive customers who we will never be able to thank enough.”

And across town at the Winston-Salem Fairgrounds, the midway — an area not being used during the pandemic — has become home to a pop-up theater, The Drive at Winston-Salem Fairgrounds. Three storage containers have been stacked in the center of the midway, with screens on opposite sides and fencing, allowing the drive-in to show movies simultaneously to two different audiences. It is scheduled to play movies through mid-September, then move out to make room for the Carolina Classic Fair. If the fair were to be delayed or canceled this year, The Drive “most likely would get extended,” said Robert Mulhearn, venue manager for the Fairgrounds.

“Everybody’s kind of embraced and enjoyed it,” said Chris King, an event planner from High Point who came up with the idea for the pop-up drive-in after hearing some of his overseas customers talk about shutdowns early in the pandemic before COVID-19 was prevalent in the United States.

“It’s a really chill atmosphere.” He recalled a recent screening where an 80-year-old couple was able to make it out to the movies and stay safe.

Hollywood is not releasing many new movies — the release of “Tenet,” Christoper Nolan’s highly-anticipated new thriller, was just delayed indefinitely, and the release dates of other big movies such as “Mulan” and “Black Widow” are questionable. Some big films meant for theatrical distribution are turning up instead on digital and streaming services.

“I’m fairly certain that new movie releases from the major studios will continue to be delayed or canceled,” King said. “There’s no way to know when the studios will actually release new films.”

Golden oldies ruleBut drive-ins are having good turnouts with recent and classic films. The first seven screenings at Marketplace were all sold-out shows, starting with “Smokey and the Bandit” and “The Muppet Movie,” a streak that only ended when the theater showed the new movie “Relic,” something audiences were not familiar with.

They had such a success with the Star Wars movie “The Empire Strikes Back,” though, that they had to add a second showing. Kleeberg attributed the success of older movies with how well they were made.

And at The Drive, King said last week’s showings of “Grease” were particularly successful and had the biggest demand of any movies they have shown. “We expect to work more classic movies into our offerings,” he said.

Last Saturday night, both theaters had bustling business and near-perfect weather. Marketplace Drive-in Cinema was screening the 2008 hit “Iron Man” with Robert Downey Jr., the movie that launched the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” franchise.

At The Drive, one screen was playing the animated comedy “Shrek” (2001) and other was playing the musical “Grease” (1978) — which, appropriately enough has scenes set at a drive-in theater. Later that night, the Drive had its first midnight movies, “Days of Thunder” and “Parasite.”

Both theaters offer concessions with social distancing and plenty of safety protocols in place. At Marketplace, customers can go to restaurants at the mall itself, get popcorn and snacks from the cinema lobby, or visit food trucks and tents that are set up on a rotating basis in the parking lot. The Drive has a concession stand with hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, candy and other items — even beer and wine options — that patrons order online and employees deliver to customers’ parking spaces.

At both theaters, patrons listen to the movies on special FM radio stations through their car stereos or portable radios they bring in with them. Occasionally, someone may need a jump start if they run their battery down, but both theaters have become adept at handling those situations.

Tickets and eventsMarketplace currently sets its prices by the carload — typically $20, but with some occasional weekday specials that run $10, such as tonight’s screening of the 2005 sci-fi film “Serenity,” a sequel to the cult TV series “Firefly.” They will continue with carload pricing for the foreseeable future, Kleeberg said.

They also hold special events, such as last month’s new streaming concert by Garth Brooks, and this Saturday’s streaming concert with Blake Shelton, Gwen Stefani and Trace Adkins. More live concert events are planned in the future, allowing musicians who are not currently able to tour to perform for live audiences around the country. Tickets for those shows are sold through Ticketmaster, not by Marketplace, which is serving as the venue, and are higher than movie ticket prices — the Shelton concert will run $114.99 for a carload of up to six people.

And Marketplace has also worked with the RiverRun International Film Festival to show movies and packages of short films that were meant to be shown during this year’s festival; they will likely be doing more of those in the near future.

The Drive charges by the person, with tickets typically running $8.50 to 10.50 (more expensive on weekends) for adults, and less for children. This weekend, they are planning their next round of midnight movies, with Prince’s “Purple Rain” and the sci-fi smash “The Matrix” on Saturday night, in addition to their evening screenings of other movies.

Based on audience reactions, they are also mixing up their scheduling some, King said, putting different movies on weekends than played on weeknights for people who want a chance to go out to the drive-in multiple times a week.

Both theaters encourage patrons to buy their tickets in advance online, and they position vehicles to avoid having larger vehicles up front that may block the view of patrons in shorter vehicles behind them.

It’s hard to say what the future holds for the moviegoing experience, especially for indoor theaters. Even when people are able to go see movies indoors, Kleeberg said, he’s not sure how many audience members will want to take that chance.

“They always said movie cinemas are recession-proof,” Kleeberg said. “Throughout the last 40 years, we have survived recessions and inventions of Beta, VHS, DVDs, Blu-rays, HBO, Netflix and streaming services, but COVID may be one arch-nemesis we never saw coming.”