Sony and Alamo Drafthouse, the upmarket cinema chain the studio acquired in 2024, are in talks with the ownership of Los Angeles’ iconic Cinerama Dome theatre and adjacent ArcLight Hollywood multiplex about reopening the shuttered venues, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.
The movie houses closed at the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Their operator, Pacific Theatres, later filed for bankruptcy. The properties are still owned by the family of Pacific’s founder, William R. Forman, who built the Dome in 1963. It is now a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.
Deadline, which broke the news, noted that the family had taken meetings with exhibitors and studios while searching for a new operator. AMC and Amazon MGM are said to have passed.
Sony did not respond to a request for comment from THR.
The venues’ zombie status had become a subject of curiosity and dissent in recent years. Petitions were circulated and protests were held over the issue, which came to be seen as emblematic of ongoing economic woes of both the film industry as well as L.A. Throughout, the family declined to publicly discuss the matter.
The Cinerama Dome is known for its striking architecture, inspired by the ideas of R. Buckminster Fuller. It’s long been a popular industry choice for studio premieres and the lighting of its exterior served as shorthand for the romance of the town in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
The ArcLight helped pioneer premium modern multiplex features, including reclining stadium-style chairs, in-house gourmet dining and reserved seating. Alamo Drafthouse, another hospitality-driven exhibitor, has recently come under fire for allowing mobile ordering of concessions, a seeming pivot away from its strict previous prohibition on phone use during shows.
Since the Cinerama Dome and ArcLight Hollywood’s closure, L.A. has seen a venue renaissance. This includes the arrival of the David Geffen Theater at the new AMPAS museum, Tarantino’s restoration and reopening of the Vista Theatre, the rehabilitation of the old Eagle Theatre by non-profit Vidiots, a Netflix-funded glow-up of the Egyptian Theatre and the upgrading of the Alex Theatre so it can handle first-run films like The Odyssey.
