“When we moved to St. Maarten from Antigua, it was ostensibly because I wanted to create a movie museum to inspire kids to reach for the stars and keep us in Pina Coladas when we’re 95 years old.” Nick Maley explains.  First, in 2003, he established a shop (in Old Street) to fund the enterprise and test doing business in St Maarten. In 2005, Nick and Gloria made the commitment to move their lives to SXM from Antigua.   Once that was completed, they took on the museum space on Front Street in 2008, then undertook the painstaking process of piecing each display together one bit of movie history at a time.

Based on Nick’s private collection of movie relics, duplicates and collectables, Nick talks on DVD or hologram about each piece.  “It’s movie history from the inside”, Nick comments. “People overlook the fact that almost everything written and discussed about STAR WARS was written by people who were not there! Trivia games, chat rooms, Star Wars Encyclopedias, even StarWars.com, none of them are written by movie makers. They are all regurgitating info that originates from the Publicity Department. And most of the time, they were not there either. The reality of making the classic STAR WARS trilogy and other classic movies is being lost as the people who made the movie are dying off. So much is unknown.  Did you know there were 5 versions of Yoda built for the classic trilogy and 6 people who operated him? StarWars.com and the Smithsonian don’t”

The first phase of the Exhibit opened officially September 2011. The second phase doubled the museum size in December 2015 to include displays about the Men in Black, Harry and the Hendersons  and Planet of the Apes.