The Cocoa Village Playhouse, built in 1924 in Cocoa Village, stood in for Key West’s Strand Theater during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis in Joe Dante’s classic 1993 film Matinee.

Matinee is an homage to the classic science fiction films of the 1950s and 1960s. For the film, a fake facade was added to the exterior of the Playhouse to accommodate a more movie theater look with a colorful, well-lit marquee. Only exterior shots involving the movie theater were filmed here with the interior shots being filmed on a purpose-built set at Universal Studios in Orlando.

The images below are screen grabs from the film showing its temporary transformation into a movie theater premiering the film Mant!, the story of a man turned into an ant due to radiation exposure.

The film starred John Goodman as a B-Movie producer/director in the vein of William Castle who uses a variety of theatrical gimmicks to bring the action off the screen and into the audience for maximum shock value.