Fox Theater, Westwood Village

Last updated

Regency Village Theatre
Highsmithwestwoodvillagetheater.jpg
Regency Village Theatre with iconic tower
Location961 Broxton Avenue, Westwood, Los Angeles, California
Coordinates 34°03′46″N118°26′51″W / 34.062684°N 118.447407°W / 34.062684; -118.447407
Built1931
Architect Percy Parke Lewis
Architectural style(s) California Churrigueresque
(Spanish Colonial Revival)
Governing bodyPrivate
DesignatedJune 21, 1988 [1]
Reference no.362
U.S. - Los Angeles Metropolitan Area location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location of Regency Village Theatre in the Los Angeles metropolitan area
The Emoji Movie premiere, Westwood Village The Emoji Movie premiere at the Fox Theatre, Westwood Village 4.jpg
The Emoji Movie premiere, Westwood Village

The Regency Village Theatre (formerly the Fox Theatre, Westwood Village or the Fox Village Theatre) is a historic, landmark cinema in Westwood, Los Angeles, California in the heart of the Mediterranean-themed shopping and cinema precinct, opposite the Fox Bruin Theater, near the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The Regency Theaters chain lease ended in July 2024. The Westwood Village Theatre has been the site for many Hollywood movie premieres in Los Angeles. [2] [3] The seating capacity of the cinema is about 1,400. [4]

Contents

History

Designed by architect Percy Parke Lewis, [5] the Fox was originally built in 1930 and first opened on August 14, 1931, [4] in a Spanish Mission style. [5] [4] The theatre was part of a widespread cinema construction program undertaken by Fox West Coast Theatres. The theatre is part of the 1929 Westwood Village, a Mediterranean-style village development adjoining the University of California Los Angeles planned by Harold and Edwin Janss of the Janss Investment Company.

In the 1940s, the backstage areas were bricked off. [4]

On October 18, 1951, the Village Theatre was given a Skouras era remodel and reopened, increasing the seating capacity to 1,535, with plaster gold swirls on the stage area side-walls, exit upgrades, new seats, new carpet, and lobby upgrades, including California Gold Rush artwork. [4] [6]

In 1973, National General Theatres, the former Fox Theatres-West Coast, sold this theater to Ted Mann, then owner of the Chinese Theatre, becoming part of the Mann Theatres chain. [7]

In the late 1970s, new 70mm projection equipment was installed and a larger screen was added.

In 1988, the Fox Theatre was designated by the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission as an Historic Cultural Monument (HCM #362). [1]

Circa 1998-1999, the theater had a remodeling, getting new seating and carpet. [4]

In 2010, Mann Theatres went out of business. Regency Theatres became the operator of both the Village Theatre and a multiplex cinema at "The Plant" in Van Nuys. [8]

In 2014, Regency added the immersive Dolby Atmos sound system to the theater in time for the movie Transcendence .

In 2019, it became the first THX Ultimate Cinema™ theatre. [9] An investor group led by Jason Reitman agreed to buy the theater in February 2024. The group consisted of more than two dozen filmmakers; besides Reitman, the group also includes J. J. Abrams, Judd Apatow, Damien Chazelle, Chris Columbus, Ryan Coogler, Bradley Cooper, Todd Phillips, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Hannah Fidell, James Gunn, Sian Heder, Rian Johnson, Gil Kenan, Karyn Kusama, Justin Lin, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, David Lowery, Christopher McQuarrie, Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas, Alexander Payne, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Jay Roach, Seth Rogen, Emma Seligman, Brad Silberling, Steven Spielberg, Denis Villeneuve, Lulu Wang and Chloé Zhao. The group will showcase props, wardrobe and film collections, notably Columbus' collection of 16mm film prints, from their personal collections. There are plans to add a restaurant, bar and gallery to it. [10]

On July 25, 2024 the Fox Theater, Westwood Village and Fox Bruin Theater closed their doors, when leases expired. [11] [12]

Architectural features

A feature of the theater is the 170-foot [13] white Spanish Revival/Moderne [14] tower which looms over the Broxton and Weyburn Avenues intersection. Atop the tower is a blue and white metal Art Deco “Fox” sign, which was renovated in the late 1980s.

Carved winged lions sit halfway up the tower at the base of projecting columns. A blue and white sign with the legend "Fox Westwood Village" is positioned at the bottom of the tower just above the entrance. By night, the elegant white tower literally becomes a beacon with its signs and the shaft of the tower illuminated.

The rectangular cinema building immediately behind the tower features long rows of Churrigueresque stucco decorations. Perched atop the corners of the building stand carved griffins.

Movie premieres

Westwood Village hosts around 24 movie premieres per year. [15] The list of features which have debuted at the theater includes: [2] [3] [16] [17] [18] Robots , The Fast and the Furious , A Star Is Born , Spider-Man: No Way Home , Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse , Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse , Spider-Man , Spider-Man 2 , James Bond films, JFK , Mission: Impossible , Batman , every Harry Potter film, Independence Day , Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines , The Emoji Movie, The Lego Movie , Shrek , Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie , the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs franchise, Overlord , Venom , Murder Mystery , Hairspray , Bullet Train , and hundreds of others.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">THX</span> Theater standard and American audio company founded in 1983 by George Lucas

THX Ltd. is an American audio company based in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is known for its eponymous suite of high fidelity audiovisual reproduction standards for movie theaters, screening rooms, home theaters, computer speakers, video game consoles, car audio systems, and video games. The THX trailer that precedes compliant films is based on the Deep Note, with a distinctive glissando up from a rumbling low pitch.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Westwood, Los Angeles</span> Neighborhood of Los Angeles in California, United States

Westwood is a commercial and residential neighborhood in the northern central portion of the Westside region of Los Angeles, California. It is the home of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Bordering the campus on the south is Westwood Village, a major regional district for shopping, dining, movie theaters, and other entertainment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grauman's Egyptian Theatre</span> Movie theater in Los Angeles, California

Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, also known as Egyptian Hollywood and the Egyptian, is a historic movie theater located on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Opened in 1922, it is an early example of a lavish movie palace and is noted as having been the site of the world's first film premiere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grauman's Chinese Theatre</span> Movie theater in Hollywood, Los Angeles

The TCL Chinese Theatre, commonly referred to as Grauman's Chinese Theatre, is a movie palace on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Century Theatres</span> Movie theater chain in the western United States

Century Theatres is a movie theater chain that operates many multiplexes in the western United States, primarily in California, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. In its later years, it had expanded into the inter-mountain states, the Pacific Northwest, Texas, Alaska and parts of the Midwestern United States. Founded in 1941, the chain was headquartered in San Rafael, California until it was acquired by Cinemark Theatres from Plano, Texas in 2006. Many now-Cinemark-owned theaters continue to operate under the Century brand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fox Theatres</span> Chain of movie theaters in the United States

Fox Theatres was a large chain of movie theaters in the United States dating from the 1920s either built by Fox Film studio owner William Fox, or subsequently merged in 1929 by Fox with the West Coast Theatres chain, to form the Fox West Coast Theatres chain. Fox West Coast went into bankruptcy and was sold to The National Theatres Corporation, led by Charles Skouras, on November 19, 1934, for $17,000,000.00. Eugene Klein later became CEO of National, and turned it into the conglomerate National General. Mann Theatres bought National General's theatres in 1973.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">El Capitan Theatre</span> Movie theater in Los Angeles, California

El Capitan Theatre is a fully restored movie palace at 6838 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, United States. The theater and adjacent Hollywood Masonic Temple are owned by The Walt Disney Company and serve as the venue for a majority of the Walt Disney Studios' film premieres.

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 is a leader in the theatrical exhibition industry with 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saban Theatre</span> Historic theatre in Beverly Hills, California

The Saban Theatre is a historic theatre in Beverly Hills, California, formerly known as the Fox Wilshire Theater. It is an Art Deco structure at the southeast corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Hamilton Drive designed by architect S. Charles Lee and is considered a classic Los Angeles landmark. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 3, 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mann Theatres</span>

Mann Theatres was a movie theater chain that predominantly operated in the western United States, with a heavy concentration of theaters in Southern California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Westwood Boulevard</span> Major street in Los Angeles, California

Westwood Boulevard is a street in Los Angeles that runs through the heart of Westwood Village and further south in West Los Angeles.

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.

S. Charles Lee was an American architect recognized as one of the most prolific and distinguished motion picture theater designers on the West Coast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Broadway Theater District (Los Angeles)</span> United States historic place

The Broadway Theater District in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles is the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch of Broadway, it is the only large concentration of movie palaces left in the United States. The same six-block stretch of Broadway, and an adjacent section of Seventh Street, was also the city's retail hub for the first half of the twentieth century, lined with large and small department stores and specialty stores.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ralphs Grocery Store (Los Angeles, California)</span> United States historic place

Ralphs Grocery Store is a historic building in the Westwood Village section of Westwood, Los Angeles, California. Built in 1929 as a Ralphs Grocery Store, it was one of the original six buildings in the Westwood Village development. The building was noted for its cylindrical rotunda capped by a low saucer dome, with a pediment over the entrance and arcaded wings extending north and east. It was photographed by Ansel Adams in 1940, declared a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1988, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fox Bruin Theater</span> Historic site in Los Angeles, California

The Fox Bruin Theater is a 670-seat movie palace located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, near University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Janss Investment Company Building</span> Historic site in Los Angeles, California

The Janss Investment Company Building, also known as the Janss Dome, is a historic building in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, in the Westwood Village. The building is located at the five-way intersection of Westwood Boulevard, Kinross Avenue, and Broxton Avenue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holmby Hall</span> Building in Los Angeles, California, US

Holmby Hall is an historic landmark building in Westwood Village, Los Angeles, California. Built in 1929, Holmby Hall is a streetscape of six Spanish Colonial Revival storefronts and features a prominent white clock tower, capped by a green pinnacle. The tower measures about 110 feet tall and features six levels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nimoy Theater</span> Movie theatre in Los Angeles, California

The Nimoy Theater, formerly known as Crest, Majestic Crest and Bigfoot Crest Theatre, is a movie theatre located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It was founded as the UCLAN in 1941, and was built for live performances but switched to a newsreel cinema during World War II. Through ownership changes, it has been known at various times as UCLAN Theatre, Crest Theatre, and Metro Theatre. The original 500-seat art deco style theater was designed by Arthur W. Hawes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hollywood Boulevard Commercial and Entertainment District</span> Historic district in Los Angeles, California

The Hollywood Boulevard Commercial and Entertainment District is a historic district that consists of twelve blocks between the 6200 and 7000 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. This strip of commercial and retail businesses, which includes more than 100 buildings, is recognized for its significance with the entertainment industry, particularly Hollywood and its golden age, and it also features the predominant architecture styles of the 1920s and 1930s.

References

  1. 1 2 Department of City Planning. "Designated Historic-Cultural Monuments". City of Los Angeles. Archived from the original on June 9, 2010. Retrieved June 15, 2010.
  2. 1 2 Thorne, William (October 1, 2015). "Westwood home to long history of Hollywood film debuts since 1931". Daily Bruin . Retrieved March 28, 2023.
  3. 1 2 "Movie Premiere Westwood Village". Getty Images . Retrieved March 28, 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Regency Village Theater - Mann Village Theater". Cinema Treasures . Retrieved November 9, 2011.
  5. 1 2 "Fox Westwood Village Theatre". ArchitectDB. Retrieved September 3, 2008.
  6. ↑ "Carl G. Moeller: Theatre Architect". historic theatre photos .com. Retrieved March 28, 2023.
  7. ↑ "National General's Chinese". cinelog.org. Retrieved March 28, 2023.
  8. ↑ Linthicum, Kate (April 1, 2010). "2 historic Westwood theaters saved from possible closure". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved September 23, 2020.
  9. ↑ "THX Launches World's First THX Ultimate Cinema™ at Regency Westwood Village Theatre". THX. Retrieved March 29, 2023.
  10. ↑ Saperstein, Pat (February 21, 2024). "Jason Reitman Acquires Fox Village Westwood Theater With Filmmakers Including Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, JJ Abrams, Chloé Zhao". Variety . Retrieved February 22, 2024.
  11. ↑ "Historic Westwood Theaters Close Their Doors". Beverly Hills Courier . July 28, 2024. Retrieved December 11, 2024. July 25 marked the end of a movie-going era in Westwood, when the curtains fell on the village's two 1930s-era movie houses. The Regency Village Theatre (formerly the Fox Theater, Westwood Village) and the Fox Bruin Theater closed their doors at the end of the business night, when their leases expired.
  12. ↑ James, Meg (July 21, 2024). "Beloved historic movie theaters Westwood Village and Bruin to close this week". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 22, 2024.
  13. ↑ "Village Theatre reopens tonight in Westwood". Los Angeles Times. October 18, 1951.
  14. ↑ Gebhard, David; Winter, Robert (2003). An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles (5 ed.). Gibbs Smith. ISBN   978-1-58685-308-2.
  15. ↑ Zhang, Enming (April 29, 2019). "Committee discusses movie premieres' impact on Westwood Village businesses". Daily Bruin . Retrieved March 29, 2023.
  16. ↑ "Movie premieres in Westwood Village". Westwood Village Improvement Association. Retrieved March 28, 2023.
  17. ↑ Rizzo, Carita (August 10, 2018). "Mark Wahlberg, Peter Berg Talk Making a "Character-Driven Action Movie" With 'Mile 22'". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved March 28, 2023.
  18. ↑ "'Bullet Train' premiere in Los Angeles". New York Daily News . Retrieved March 28, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.