Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | Movie theater |
Founded | March 22, 2002 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Defunct | April 12, 2021 |
Fate | Permanently closed in April 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic |
Headquarters | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Number of locations | 11 (at the time of closure) |
Area served | United States (locations in California, Illinois, Massachusetts and Maryland) |
Owner | The Decurion Corporation |
Website | Archived official website at the Wayback Machine (archive index) |
ArcLight Cinemas was an American movie theater chain that operated from 2002 to 2021. It was owned by The Decurion Corporation, which was also the parent company of Pacific Theatres. The ArcLight chain opened in 2002 as a single theater, the ArcLight Hollywood in Hollywood, Los Angeles, and later expanded to eleven locations in California, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Illinois.
The chain has been credited for pioneering features such as assigned seating, reclining chairs, and in-house bars and restaurants that were later adopted by major theatre chains. Screenings at the ArcLight were usually introduced by an employee and visitors would not be admitted after the screening had started. [1]
ArcLight Cinemas closed temporarily in March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 12, 2021, Pacific Theatres announced that the ArcLight and Pacific Theatres chains would permanently close, citing the lack of a viable path forward after the pandemic. Following the closure, all former ArcLight locations (except the Santa Monica one) were acquired by other theater chains. The Decurion Corporation plans to reopen the former ArcLight Hollywood with the Cinerama Dome in 2025 as the Cinerama Hollywood.
ArcLight Hollywood was the first theater in the ArcLight chain and was considered to be the flagship location. It opened on March 22, 2002 and was located at 6360 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California. [2] It featured 15 screens with stadium seating, and carried a THX certification for sound and picture presentation. The building was located adjacent to the Cinerama Dome. It was a subsidiary of The Decurion Corporation, which also owned Pacific Theatres. [2]
Tickets for all film showings used assigned seating. The only restriction was the inability to select a seat if it created a single seat space between an already reserved seat, to prevent orphan empty seats that could only be filled by a single individual.
The only promotional material shown before films were trailers. [2] At showtime, immediately before the trailers began, an usher would introduce the film to the audience and state the ArcLight's policies regarding quality assurance. Two ushers would remain in the theater for a few minutes after the film had begun, to ensure that the picture and sound quality were acceptable. The usher would also ask the audience to silence their cell phones and refrain from texting. [3] Seating was prohibited after a film had begun, in correlation with ArcLight's slogan, "Your Movie Time Uninterrupted."
In 2008, the ArcLight Hollywood and the ArcLight Sherman Oaks, which opened in 2007, introduced digital projection. [4] Each location had two houses with Kinoton 35mm projectors for archival and special presentations. [5]
The ArcLight routinely featured exhibits of props and costumes from the films it was screening, as well as local art including 5 different exhibitions from 2009-2020, by artist Clifford Bailey. [6]
ArcLight Sherman Oaks opened November 16, 2007, at the Sherman Oaks Galleria, replacing the Galleria Pacific Theater. The grand opening took place on December 14, 2007. [7] A location in Pasadena at The Paseo opened on May 10, 2010. [8] In late 2010, Pacific Theaters refurbished an existing Pacific Theaters multiplex as an ArcLight in El Segundo. [9] The location opened as ArcLight Beach Cities on November 5, 2010. [10]
In November 2012, ArcLight La Jolla opened in San Diego, its first location outside of Los Angeles County. It was located at Westfield UTC, and was part of the mall's $180 million renovation. [11]
In October 2014, the first location outside California opened at Westfield Montgomery in Bethesda, Maryland. [12]
In 2015, ArcLight opened two locations in the Midwestern U.S., both in the Chicago metropolitan area in Illinois. The first theatre in Glenview opened in May 2015, followed by the second location in Chicago's Lincoln Park in November 2015. The Glenview location was previously occupied by Regal and extensively remodeled to the chain's standards, while the Chicago location was the chain's first theatre constructed in the Midwest. [13]
A location in Culver City, California, opened on May 1, 2015. [14] The ArcLight opened the first of two proposed locations in Santa Monica, California, in November 2015 in the newly remodeled Santa Monica Place. [15] In August 2017, the developer for the second ArcLight location announced that they were abandoning the deal, citing doubts about its profitability due to being in close proximity to the existing Santa Monica location. If completed, it would have featured the ArcLight's first IMAX screen. [16]
A location in Boston, Massachusetts, the first Northeastern U.S. location, opened at The Hub on Causeway on November 26, 2019. [17]
The ArcLight chain closed temporarily in March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 12, 2021, Pacific Theatres announced that the ArcLight and Pacific Theatres chains would permanently close, citing the lack of a viable path forward after the pandemic. The parent company, The Decurion Corporation, said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times that, “After shutting our doors more than a year ago, today we must share the difficult and sad news that Pacific will not be reopening its ArcLight Cinemas and Pacific Theatres locations,” Pacific Theatres said in a statement. “This was not the outcome anyone wanted, but despite a huge effort that exhausted all potential options, the company does not have a viable way forward.” [18] After the announcement, the owner of Santa Monica Place evicted ArcLight from its location at the mall, claiming it owed nearly $369,000 in back rent. [19]
In June 2022, it was announced that Decurion Corp. has plans to reopen the ArcLight Hollywood and Cinerama Dome and rename the complex as Cinerama Hollywood, which would include two bars and a restaurant at the location. [20] [21] In September, it was reported that the cinema would not be reopening until at least 2024. [22] In November 2023, it was reported that the cinema's reopening had been delayed until the second quarter of 2025 due largely to the redesign happening in the space including the addition of restaurants and event space. [23]
On June 19, 2021, Regal Cinemas acquired the lease of the location of the former ArcLight at Sherman Oaks Galleria. Regal planned a $10 million renovation with the addition of IMAX, Regal RPX, ScreenX, & 4DX auditoriums. [24] [25] The theater reopened in July 2021 as part of the Regal chain. [26] In January 2023, however, it was announced that the theater would close on February 15 unless the lease was renegotiated, but it continued to operate after the date had passed. [27] [28] In May 2023, Regal reached a new lease agreement with the Galleria to continue operating the theater as part of their company. [29]
In November 2021, it was announced that Landmark Theaters had acquired the lease to The Glen Town Center's former ArcLight in Glenview, Illinois. [30] It reopened as part of the company's chain the following year. [31]
In December 2021, AMC Theatres announced that they had acquired the lease to the former ArcLight Chicago 14 in Lincoln Park, Chicago, which reopened as part of the AMC chain in April 2022. [32] [33]
In February 2022, AMC reached a deal to acquire the leases to the former ArcLight at Westfield UTC mall in San Diego, California, and the former ArcLight at Westfield Montgomery in Bethesda, Maryland. The former reopened during that month, and the latter resumed business in March of that year. [34] In December 2022, it was announced that AMC acquired the lease to the former ArcLight located at The Hub on Causeway in Boston and it was reopened as part of the company's chain in November 2023. [35] [36] [37]
In July 2022, Amazon acquired the lease of the former Culver City, California location and planned to operate it as its first movie theatre. [38] It reopened as the Culver Theatre in December 2022. [39]
In April 2023, it was announced that Regal had acquired the lease to the former ArcLight theater at The Paseo in Pasadena, California. [40] [41] It reopened as a Regal location in June 2023 with plans to add ScreenX and 4DX auditoriums. [42] [43]
In November 2023, Cinema West Theaters announced that they would remodel the former ArcLight theater in El Segundo, California as the new "CinemaWest Beach Cities". It was slated to open in Summer 2024. [44]
This makes the Santa Monica location the only to not reopen. In 2023, it was announced that the structure containing Bloomingdale's and the Santa Monica location would be renovated as a 48,000-square-foot flagship outpost for Arte Museum, an immersive digital media destination planned and produced by D’strict, a digital design company based in Seoul, South Korea. Macerich, Santa Monica Place development corporation, announced that the remaining space in the structure would possibly house a high-end fitness facility. [45]
The Cinerama Dome is a movie theater located at 6360 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California. Designed to exhibit widescreen Cinerama films, it opened November 7, 1963. The original developer was William R. Forman, founder of Pacific Theatres. The Cinerama Dome continued as a leading first-run theater, most recently as part of the ArcLight Hollywood complex, until it closed temporarily in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in California. The ArcLight chain closed permanently in April 2021, with the theater never having reopened. In June 2022, it was announced that there were plans to reopen it and the former ArcLight Hollywood under a new name, Cinerama Hollywood.
AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. is an American movie theater chain founded in Kansas City, Missouri, and now headquartered in Leawood, Kansas. It is the largest movie theater chain in the world. Founded in 1920, AMC has the largest share of the U.S. theater market, ahead of Regal Cinemas and Cinemark Theatres.
Regal Cinemas is an American movie theater chain that operates the second-largest theater circuit in the United States, with 6,853 screens in 511 theaters as of December 31, 2021. Founded on August 10, 1989, it is owned by the British company Cineworld and headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee. The three main theater brands operated by Regal Entertainment Group are Regal Cinemas, Edwards Theatres, and United Artists Theatres.
Muvico Theaters was a movie theater chain headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Muvico had seven complexes in Florida, one in the Chicago metropolitan area (Rosemont), and one in Thousand Oaks, California. Muvico's theaters were known for the use of decorative themes at several theaters, such as the Egyptian, 1950s drive-in, French opera house, Mediterranean palace, and 1920s grand movie palace themes.
Landmark Theatres is a movie theatre chain founded in 1974 in the United States. It was formerly dedicated to exhibiting and marketing independent and foreign films. Landmark consists of 34 theatres with 176 screens in 24 markets. It is known for both its historic and newer, more modern theatres. Helmed by its President, Kevin Holloway, Landmark Theatres is part of Cohen Media Group.
Cinemark Holdings, Inc. is an American movie theater chain that started operations in 1984 and since then it has operated theaters with hundreds of locations throughout the Americas. It is headquartered in Plano, Texas, in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. Cinemark operates 521 theaters and 5,855 screens in the U.S. and Latin America as of June 30, 2022. It is also the largest movie theater chain in Brazil, with a 30 percent market share.
Sherman Oaks Galleria is an open-air shopping mall and business center located in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States, at the corner of Ventura and Sepulveda Boulevards in the San Fernando Valley.
The Paseo is an outdoor mall in Pasadena, California, covering three city blocks with office space, shops, restaurants, a movie theater, and 400 loft-style condominiums above.
The LA Film Festival was an annual film festival that was held in Los Angeles, California, and usually took place in June. It showcased independent, international, feature, documentary and short films, as well as web series, music videos, episodic television and panel conversations.
Carmike Cinemas, Inc. was an American motion picture exhibitor headquartered in Columbus, Georgia. As of March 2016, the company had 276 theaters with 2,954 screens in 41 states, and was the fourth largest movie theater chain in the United States. The company billed itself as "America's Hometown Theatre" and Carmike theaters were largely positioned in rural or suburban areas with populations under 200,000. The company's theaters operated under various names and generally had a name followed by the number of auditoriums at that location; for example, "Carmike 15".
Santa Monica Place is an outdoor shopping mall in Santa Monica, California. The mall is located at the south end of Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade shopping district, two blocks from the beach and Santa Monica Pier. The mall originally opened in 1980 as an indoor mall, and underwent a massive, three-year reconstruction process beginning in January 2008 and re-opened as an outdoor shopping mall on August 6, 2010. The mall spans three levels. The mall also features the traditional retailer Nordstrom. The mall's tenant mix is predominantly upscale, featuring Tiffany & Co., Louis Vuitton, Tory Burch, Elie Tahari, and AllSaints.
Kerasotes Showplace Theatres, LLC was a movie theatre operator in the United States. Based in Chicago, Kerasotes Showplace Theatres, LLC was the sixth-largest movie-theatre company in North America which had some 957 screens in 95 locations in California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, and Wisconsin at one point.
Laemmle Theatres is a group of family-run arthouse movie theaters in the Los Angeles area. It was established in 1938 and is owned and operated by Robert Laemmle and his son Greg Laemmle.
Pacific Theatres was an American chain of movie theaters in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of California. Pacific Theatres was owned by The Decurion Corporation which also owned and operated ArcLight Cinemas. In 2008, it sold its store locations in San Diego to Reading Cinemas. In April 2021, Pacific Theatres announced they would not be reopening any of their theater locations after being closed since March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2021, the company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Following the closure, some former Pacific locations were acquired by AMC Theatres.
The Mainstreet Theater, also commonly referred to as The Empire Theater, is a historic theater in downtown Kansas City, Missouri in the Power & Light District. The theater was landmarked and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in February 2007.
Hollywood Pacific Theatre, also known as Warner Theatre, Warner Bros. Theatre, Warner Hollywood Theatre, Warner Cinerama, Warner Pacific, and Pacific 1-2-3, is a historic office, retail, and entertainment space located at 6433 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. It is best known for its movie theater, which was owned by Warner Bros. from 1928 to 1953, Stanley Warner Theatres from 1953 to 1968, and Pacific Theatres from 1968 to 1994.
The Decurion Corporation was an American corporation with headquarters in Los Angeles, California. It was the parent company of Pacific Theatres and ArcLight Hollywood.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a negative effect on certain films in the early 2020s, mirroring its impacts across all arts sectors. Across the world, and to varying degrees, cinemas and movie theaters were closed, festivals were cancelled or postponed, and film releases were moved to future dates or delayed indefinitely. Due to cinemas and movie theaters closing, the global box office dropped by billions of dollars, streaming saw a significant increase in popularity, and the stock of film exhibitors dropped dramatically. Many blockbusters originally scheduled to be released by mid-March 2020 were postponed or canceled around the world, with film productions also being halted. This in turn created openings for independent cinema productions to receive wider exposure.
The Hub on Causeway is a 1,500,000 sq ft (139,400 m2) mixed-use development in West End, Boston adjoining the TD Garden and North Station. It stands on the former site of Boston Garden, which was razed in 1998. Before its construction, the old Garden footprint served as employee parking. As of December 28th, 2024, the Hub Office Tower is tied for the 18th-tallest building in Boston with Exchange Place, and the Hub Residential Tower is tied for the 24th-tallest building in Boston with the Custom House Tower.
I would say that we have successfully opened Regal Sherman Oaks. I would really compliment our great team in real estate and in operations, which did the whole thing in record time. People really were so happy to get their local cinema back.