LOS ANGELES (AP) — On a hot summer night, Miles Villalon lined up outside the New Beverly Cinema a few hours before the show.
The 36-year-old already had tickets for the Watergate-themed double feature 1976’s “The President’s Men” and 1999’s “Dick.” But Villalon braved Los Angeles’ infamous rush hour traffic to secure a front row seat at Quentin Tarantino’s historic theater.
This level of dedication is commonplace for the Starbucks barista and aspiring filmmaker, who typically sees up to six movies a week in theaters, almost exclusively in and around Los Angeles. I’m watching a movie at a privately owned theater.
“I always say it feels like church,” he said. “When you go to AMC, you’re just sitting there. And you don’t really experience that community that we have here, just worshiping at the celluloid altar.”
While streaming and the pandemic have fundamentally changed movie consumption, Villalon is part of a growing group of mostly young people contributing to the renaissance of Los Angeles’ independent theater scene. The city’s enduring role as a mecca for the film industry, even if diminished, still shapes residents and their entertainment tastes, and is often reassessed in the wake of the pandemic.
Resurrection in the City of Angels
One of the things that makes this city unique is its large number of historic theaters. These theaters were either rescued from the brink of closure or revived in recent years by people with ties to the film industry. Experts see a pattern of success for certain theatrical experiences in Los Angeles.
Kate Markham, managing director of Art House Convergence, a federation of independent cinema exhibitors, said a key factor was the people who run these theaters.
“They know their audience and potential audience, and they design programs and environments to give them a special experience,” she 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 as a silent movie theater in 1922, the company partnered with the nonprofit American Cinematheque to reopen it to the public in November. . It’s now a bustling hub, with A-list celebrities premiering their projects and attending hours-long marathons, including a recent screening of four Paul Thomas Anderson films. We regularly welcome willing movie fans.
Further east is Vidyots. Vidiots, which existed as a video store in Santa Monica until it closed in 2017, reopened five years later across town with the addition of a 271-seat theater, a bar, and a new following.
“This is literally my favorite place outside the comfort of my home,” said the director and actor, who is a Vidyots financial backer along with dozens of celebrities including Aubrey Plaza and Lily Collins. Mark Duplass said.
What is it that attracts people?
What attracts people to independent theaters ranges from older programming to upscale food and drink offerings to low prices. But above all, many agree that the chains have a common aspect that cannot be matched.
“The big stores obviously have premium formats and things like that, but I think there’s a lot less community connection,” he said at the “Seven Samurai” show at Vidiots with colleagues from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. said Dr. Michael Hook, who attended the matinee. “You’re not just hanging out with people who choose to go see a three-hour Japanese movie from the 1950s.”
The pandemic was a blow from which box office revenues have yet to recover, but pruning can play a role in making the movie theater landscape more sustainable for the streaming era, said Janice O’Brian, senior vice president at ComScore. It is said that he also achieved this.
“COVID-19 has eliminated some of the theaters that should have closed anyway,” O’Brien said, referring to the closure of more than 500 theaters across the country. “I think it made everything healthier.”
The theaters that survive have found a niche, sometimes intentionally avoiding the chains’ 4DX, reclining seats and dining service.
“With the kind of films we show, you definitely don’t want to hear waiters walking around, bringing things to people, hearing cutlery scraping on plates,” said the independent film regular. Greg Lemmel, who co-owns Lemmel Theaters, laughed. It has been showing movies in Los Angeles for almost a century.
But Laemmle acknowledged the importance of offering viewers options beyond popcorn and soda, especially as an additional source of revenue. Enjoying food and drink can transform a theater into a unique destination.
“When I go to the movie theater, I usually go two minutes before the movie starts,” Duplass said. “I can go to Vidiots about 45 minutes before the movie starts and buy a cold Junior Mint, have a drink at the bar, meet people, and walk around the video store.”
In February, more than 30 filmmakers, including Jason Reitman, Steven Spielberg, Denis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan, bought Westwood’s Village Theater to save it. Will it also appear in your favorite red carpet premieres? Restaurants, bars and galleries.
Not without challenges
Like the rest of the country, movie theaters in Los Angeles have faced challenges due to the pandemic, including fewer movies showing, some of which were exacerbated by strikes last summer.
And not every theater found Tarantino or Reitman. The closure of the iconic Cinerama Dome was a huge blow to moviegoers in the city. Although it was owned and operated by the ArcLight Cinemas chain, which closed in April 2021, the Dome is something of a singularity in Hollywood, a regular premiere spot memorialized in movies, and a city in the industry. It was also a symbol of his status.
Parent company Decurion Corporation received a liquor license for the complex in July 2022, but its fate remains unclear, with reports that the target reopening date has been delayed, although it could not be reached for comment. be.
Venues that have been preserved are often preserved through some form of philanthropy or aid, such as the $16 billion federal Shuttered Venue Operator Grant Program that Laemmle took advantage of during the pandemic. He said the funding is the bandage needed for June 2021. However, full recovery has been slow.
“We’ve achieved some stability. How much remains to be seen,” he said. “The water is still cloudy.”
Only in Hollywood?
Brian Braunlich, executive director of the National Association of Theater Owners’ Film Foundation, acknowledges that in some ways this renaissance is most evident in Los Angeles because of the city’s history, culture and abundance of theaters. There is.
Tarantino, who declined to be interviewed, is unlikely to purchase a moribund recovery home in Peoria, Illinois. But Braunlich argued that this trend doesn’t mean it can’t be influenced there.
“Hollywood and filmmakers are saying, ‘Movie theaters are important,'” he says. “There are great independent theater owners who are successful all over the country, and they’re saying, ‘Yes, this is a great business to be in. This is a great business to invest in. And we’re going to do this. I think this will give them confidence that they’re not the only movie geeks out there.”
Looking back on his introduction to movies growing up in the suburbs of New Orleans, Duplass recalled going to Vidiots with his parents to see “Raising Arizona.”
“I realized that I was the same age now that I was when we first saw it together in the movie theater. And in the final scene, we were able to cry and hold my dad’s hand.” he said. “We shared the movie, but we also shared the passage of time at our favorite church, the movie theater.”