Philly Deals: An unlikely cinema mogul comes to Wilmington

Soft-spoken Penn Ketchum seems an unlikely cinema mogul. The Brooklyn native married a Manheim girl he met on his first day at Susquehanna University, settled in Lititz, near Lancaster's airport, and spent 10 years working for Lancaster County, starting as a $20,000-a-year drug-and-alcohol counselor at the King Street prison.After losing the county's top staff job (county administrator) to a rival with an MBA, Ketchum turned to the private sector. Tired of driving his young family to distant theaters, he scouted the cinema business, dominated by national chains, haunted by bankruptcies. He learned that AMC Theatres had planned a Lititz complex but canceled after imposing a metro-only corporate policy. He dialed investors. The result is the 15-screen, Imax-and-nacho-equipped Penn Cinema in Lititz, with Ketchum as managing partner. Last week, he broke ground for a similar $20 million complex on Wilmington's Christina riverfront. He plans to open Nov. 9 with Skyfall, the next James Bond film, adding Peter Jackson's The Hobbit in December.