As theaters struggle, many independent cinemas in Los Angeles are finding their audience

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Los Angeles (AP) – On a hot summer night, Miles Villalon is lined up outside the New Beverly Cinema, hours before show time.

The 36-year-old already had tickets to the Watergate-themed doubleheader of 1976’s “All the President’s Men” and 1999’s “Dick.” But Villalon braved the infamous Los Angeles crowd to snag prime seats at Quentin Tarantino’s historic theater.

This level of dedication is typical for the Starbucks barista and aspiring filmmaker, who often sees up to six movies a week in theaters, and almost exclusively in independent theaters in and around Los Angeles.

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“I always say it feels like church,” he said. “When I go to AMC, I just hang out. And I can’t really feel that social thing that we have here, where we all worship at the altar of celluloid. “

Broadcasting – and the pandemic – have dramatically changed the consumption of cinema, but Villalon is part of a growing number of young people contributing to the renaissance of LA’s independent theater scene. The city’s enduring, if waning, role as a mecca for the film industry still shapes its residents and their interests, often with a renewed appreciation in the wake of the pandemic.

Revival in the House of Angels

Part of what makes this city unique is the abundance of historic theaters, either saved from impending closure or resurrected in recent years by those connected to the film industry. Experts see a pattern of success for a certain type of theater experience in Los Angeles.

Kate Markham, managing director of Art House Convergence, a coalition of independent cinema exhibitors, said the main thing is the people who run these venues.

“They know their audience or potential audience, and they plan programs and space for them to have a different experience,” he wrote in an email.

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Tarantino pioneered this trend when he bought New Beverly in 2007. After Netflix bought and restored the nearby Egyptian Theater, which first opened in 1922 as a silent movie venue, the company reopened it to the public in November in partnership with the nonprofit American Cinematheque. . Now it’s a busy hub, often hosting A-list celebrities launching their own projects and movie buffs willing to stay for long marathons, such as recent screenings of four Paul Thomas Anderson movies.

Another east is Vidiots. Previously located as a video store in Santa Monica before closing in 2017, Vidiots reopened across town five years later with the addition of a 271-seat theater, a bar and a new dedicated plant.

“It’s my absolute favorite place to be outside of my own home,” says filmmaker and actor Mark Duplass, a financial backer of Vidiots and a host of high-profile names, including Aubrey Plaza and Lily Collins.

What brings people in?

What draws people to independent theaters can vary, from old shows to great food and drink offerings to low prices. But many agree, above all, there is a social aspect that chains cannot match.

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“The bigger venues obviously have better formats and things like that. But I think there is very little social communication,” said Dr. Michael Hook, attendee of the “Seven Samurai” event at Vidiots and partner at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. “You’re not just walking around with people who chose to go to a three-hour Japanese movie from the 1950s.”

While the pandemic was a blow to the box office from which it is still recovering, it also served as a pruning that made the movie theater landscape more sustainable during the broadcast period, according to Janice O’Bryan, senior vice president of Comscore.

“Covid has taken out some of the things that were supposed to be closed,” O’Bryan said of the more than 500 theaters that have closed across the country. “I think it made everything healthier.”

The theaters that have survived have acquired seating areas, sometimes deliberately avoiding the chains’ 4DX, reclining seats and dining facilities.

“In the variety of movies we show, I don’t want waiters walking around, bringing things to people and hearing plates being scratched,” laughs Greg Laemmle, who runs Laemmle Theaters, an independent group. cinema in Los Angeles for almost a hundred years.

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But Laemmle acknowledges the importance of giving audiences options beyond popcorn and soda, especially as a source of additional revenue. Food and drink receptions can sometimes make a theater a unique place.

“When I usually go to the theater, I show up two minutes before the movie starts,” Duplass said. “I go to Vidiots 45 minutes before the movie starts to get my cool Junior Mints, have a drink at the bar, see people. I’m walking around the video store.”

In February, more than 30 filmmakers – including Jason Reitman, Steven Spielberg, Denis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan – found Westwood’s Village Theater in an effort to save it. And you’re coming to a red carpet premiere favorite? Restaurant, bar and gallery.

Not without challenges

Like the rest of the country, LA theaters have had their share of challenges caused by the pandemic — some exacerbated by last summer’s strikes — including fewer films to be shown.

And not all theaters got their Tarantino or Reitman. The historic closure of the Cinerama Dome was a blow to the city’s cinephiles. Although it was owned and operated by the ArcLight Cinemas chain when it closed in April 2021, the Dome was a one-of-a-kind in Hollywood, a common place remembered for film and a landmark of the city’s industry.

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Its fate remains unclear, with a reported delay in the target reopening date, although parent company Decurion Corporation, which could not be reached for comment, has been granted a liquor license to re-open in July 2022.

Venues often do so through some form of relief or assistance, such as the $16 billion Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program, which Laemmle used during the crisis. He said these funds were a necessary band-aid for June 2021. But full recovery was slow.

“It gave it some stability. How much remains to be seen,” he said. “The water is still muddy.”

Only in Hollywood?

In some ways, because of the city’s history, culture and use of theaters, this revival is limited only to Los Angeles, admits Bryan Braunlich, executive director of the National Association of Theater Owners Cinema Foundation.

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

“Hollywood and the filmmakers said, ‘Hey, movies matter,'” he said. “There are amazing independent theater owners thriving all over the country. And I think they get the confidence to be like, ‘Yeah, this is a great business to be in. This is a good business to invest in. And we are not alone as film geniuses who do this.’

As Duplass describes his introduction to cinema growing up in suburban New Orleans, he recalled a trip to Vidiots to see “Raising Arizona” with his parents.

“I realized that I didn’t hug her when we first saw it in the cinema together. And I held my father’s hand when he was crying in that last scene,” he said. “We shared that movie, but we shared more time in our favorite church, which is the movie theater.”

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