Many Los Angeles independent theaters are finding their audience

LOS ANGELES (AP) — On a hot summer afternoon, Miles Villalon stood in line outside the new beverly cinemahours before the show.

The 36-year-old already had tickets to the Watergate-themed double feature of 1976’s “All the President’s Men” and 1999’s “Dick.” But Villalón braved Los Angeles’ infamous rush-hour traffic to get first-class seats. row in Quentin Tarantino Historical theater.

This level of dedication is routine for the Starbucks barista and aspiring filmmaker, who typically sees up to six movies a week in theaters, and almost exclusively at independently owned theaters in and around Los Angeles.

“I always say it feels like a church,” he said. “When I go to AMC, I just sit there. And I don’t really get to experience that communal thing that we have here, where we’re all just worshiping at the altar of celluloid.”

Streaming (and the pandemic) has Cinema consumption radically transformedBut Villalón is part of a growing number of people, mostly young, contributing to the renaissance of Los Angeles’ independent theater scene. The enduring, if diminished, role of the city as The mecca of the film industry. it still shapes its residents and their entertainment preferences, often with renewed appreciation post-pandemic.

A revival in the City of Angels

Part of what makes the city unique is its abundance of historic theaters, rescued amid impending closures or resurrected in recent years by those with ties to the film industry. Experts see a pattern of success for a certain type of theatrical experience in Los Angeles.

Kate Markham, CEO of Art House Convergence, a coalition of independent film exhibitors, said a key factor is the people who run these theaters.

“They know their audiences or potential audiences, and select programs and an environment so they have an exceptional experience,” he wrote in an email.

Tarantino pioneered this trend when he purchased the New Beverly in 2007. After Netflix purchased and restored the nearby Egyptian Theater, which first opened in 1922 as a silent movie theater, the company reopened it to the public in November in partnership with the American Cinematheque, a nonprofit organization. . It is now a bustling hub that regularly hosts A-list celebrities. launching their projects as well as moviegoers willing to stay for hours-long marathons, such as a recent screening of four Paul Thomas Anderson cinema.

Further east is Vidiots. Vidiots, which previously existed as a video store in Santa Monica before closing in 2017, reopened citywide five years later with the addition of a 271-seat theater, a bar, and a new generation of devotees.

“It’s literally my favorite place to be outside of my cozy home,” he said. filmmaker and actor Mark Duplassfinancial backer of Vidiots along with dozens of other high-profile names, including Aubrey Plaza and Lily Collins.

What is attracting people?

What attracts people to independent movie theaters can vary, previous programming to elevated food and drink deals to lower prices. But many agree that, above all, there is a community aspect that networks cannot match.

“The bigger venues obviously have premium formats and things like that. But I think there’s a lot less community connection,” said Dr. Michael Hook, who attended a morning session of “Seven Samurai” on Vidiots with a coworker from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. “You’re not just hanging around with people who have also chosen to go see a three-hour long 1950s Japanese movie.”

Although the pandemic was a blow from which the box office has not yet recovered, it also served as a pruning that ugly the cinematographic landscape. More sustainable for the streaming era.according to Janice O’Bryan, senior vice president at Comscore.

“COVID eliminated some of the things that needed to be closed anyway,” O’Bryan said of the more than 500 theaters that closed across the country. “I think it made everything healthier.”

The theaters that survived have found niches, sometimes deliberately avoiding 4DX, reclining seats and chain dining services.

“For the kind of movies we show, I definitely don’t want waiters walking around, bringing things to people and listening to cutlery scraping against plates,” laughs Greg Laemmle, co-director of Laemmle Theatres, a regular in independent cinema. . cinema in Los Angeles for almost a century.

But Laemmle recognizes the importance of offering the public options beyond popcorn and soda, especially as an additional source of income. Embracing food and drink can sometimes turn the theater into a unique destination.

“When I normally go to the movies, I arrive two minutes before the movie starts,” Duplass said. “I go to Vidiots about 45 minutes before the movie starts so I can have my cold Junior Mints, have a drink at the bar and see some people. “I go and walk around the video store.”

In February, more than 30 filmmakers – including Jason Reitman, Steven Spielberg, Denis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan – acquired Westwood’s Village Theater in an effort to preserve it. Are you also coming to your favorite red carpet premiere? A restaurant, bar and gallery.

Not without challenges

Like the rest of the country, Los Angeles movie theaters have had their share of challenges imposed by the pandemic, some exacerbated by last summer’s strikes – including fewer movies to show.

And not all theaters have found their Tarantino or their Reitman. He Closing of the iconic Cinerama Dome It was a hard blow for the city’s movie buffs. Although it was owned and operated by the ArcLight Cinemas chain when it closed in April 2021, the Dome was something of a Hollywood oddity, a regular premiere venue commemorated in film and a symbol of the city’s place in the industry. .

Its fate remains in limbo, with reported delays to the target’s reopening date, even though parent company Decurion Corporation, which could not be reached for comment, was granted a liquor license for the multiplex in July 2022.

The places that have been preserved have often done so through some form of charity or aid, such as the $16 billion federal grant. Shuttered Space Operator Grant Programthat Laemmle used during the pandemic. He said the funds were a necessary sell-off in June 2021, but full recovery has been slow.

“It provided some stability. “How much remains to be seen,” he said. “The waters are still murky.”

Only in Hollywood?

In some ways, thanks to the city’s history, culture and abundance of theaters, this renaissance is most evident in Los Angeles, admits Bryan Braunlich, executive director of the National Association of Theater Owners Cinema Foundation.

Tarantino, who declined to be interviewed, is less likely to buy a dying house in Peoria, Illinois. But, Braunlich argued, that doesn’t mean this trend can’t have an impact there.

“Hollywood and filmmakers say, ‘Hey, movie theaters matter,’” he said. “There are amazing independent cinema owners thriving all over the country. And I think they get a boost of confidence that says, ‘Yes, this is a great business to be in. It is a great business to invest in. And we’re not alone as movie nerds doing this.’”

As Duplass reflected on his own introduction to film growing up in the New Orleans suburbs, he recalled a trip to Vidiots to see “Raising Arizona” with his parents.

“I realized that I was now the same age as they were when we saw it together for the first time in the cinema. And I was able to hold my dad’s hand while we cried in that last scene,” he said. “We share that movie, but we share the passage of time in our favorite church, which is the cinema.”