Westdale's 80+ businesses are largely closed by the time that the cinema starts up. I don't think cinemagoer traffic was ever much of an issue, except maybe the matinees. There's generally oodles of parking, and Westdale is wired into the HSR's trunk line (facing onto King, three blocks from Main).
The Playhouse has a larger capacity than the Westdale, but very different dynamics in most other regards. Despite City Kidz razing a neighbouring cottage for bus access, the theatre has linited dedicated parking and is connected to the Barton bus and some distance from either King or Main, neighbourhood synergies are [emergent at best]( and it's on a side-street.
I still can't shake the feeling that both are too big to fill regularly without pandering to the mainstream. The Zoetic (which replaced
The Movie Palace) is half the size of either and defines itself as a multi-event rental space, not a cinema -- hosts one or two screenings a month. (Summer 2018 is mainly dedicated to the Harry Potter series.) It's possible that we might end up with variations on that model.