Century Plaza Cinemas
2040 Avenue of the Stars,
Los Angeles,
CA
90067
2040 Avenue of the Stars,
Los Angeles,
CA
90067
23 people
favorited this theater
Showing 51 - 75 of 83 comments
The large screen at the old Plitt was alittle like the Loews Astor Plaza in NYC. Another lost complex in Times Square.
This was a fantastic Theatre in its day. I remember seeing JAWS opening day June 20, 1975 at the Plitt Century Plaza. It, like the Avco lost its lustre when they chopped the large house into smaller screens. I think the last film I saw in the BIG Plitt Screen was the 1986 Hanks-Gleason film NOTHING IN COMMON. A year later Cineplex Odeon chopped it up. It was the begining of the end for Large Movie Theatre complexes.
I think this is where they filmed exterior shots for “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes” ?
And you only saw the old main house cut up into 3 screens. The old main house was a Great place to see a movie.
I unfortunately only made it to one film here before it was torn down. Terrible film (Below), great theatre. I remember not actually believing that a theatre existed there— it was on the bottom floor of the most corporate and stoic building complex imaginable, and parking was impossible to figure out. I was expecting the worst— but couldn’t believe how enormous the place was. I would have seen more films here if I had known… The screens and auditoriums rivaled the size of the westwood screens.
I worked for a couple of months at the Shubert Theatre, running spotlight for the show “Ragtime”, and sometimes on matinee days I’d go over to the Century Plaza and catch a piece of a movie between shows. I loved the Shubert – what a great theatre to work in! The stage door corridor adjoined a property that I was told was the old original Playboy Club. I didn’t know that until the show loaded out and we used the space that had formerly been the club to store road cases and equipment before loading it onto the trucks.
The Shubert had an interesting apparatus to bring workers to the gridiron – it was a motorized endless belt with steps that ran the 80-something feet from stage floor to grid. You’d grab one tread with your hand and step on a lower one with your feet, and ride the endless belt up to the grid, then be sure yo stepped off at the right time. It was pretty amazing, and exhilarating to ascend on this thing!
Too bad these 2 theatres are gone!
The ABC Century Plaza Theatre opened on April 5th 1972 with “Cabaret”.
Thanks for the pictures, Mark. I’ve always regretted not taking any myself during the final year.
Sorry, I have no before photos. But here are some closing weekend pictures:
http://www.cinematour.com/tour.php?db=us&id=2112
Does anyone have any photos of this theater, especially
the lobby and auditoriums before it was multiplexed? If
you do, please send me a message. I’d appreciate it!
“This theater will always have a warm place in my heart. I would take the bus from the San Gabriel valley all the way out to the Century Plaza to see "Star Wars”. They ran it in 70mm for what seemed like eternity.“ (mattepntr, Oct 9, 2004)
The Century Plaza’s “Star Wars” engagement ran from 6 July 1977 – 12 Apr 1978 and 8 May 1978 – 7 Sep 1978. The theater interrupted their first-run showings during 13 Apr – 7 May 1978 so they could host the annual FILMEX festival.
Century City is not actually a city, but merely the name of the development. It is inside the corporate limits of the City of Los Angeles.
Unfortunately no Ron.
There are no plans for any theatre at all. AMC is building a new Century City 15 plex about two blocks down in the mall next to Macy’s. This will be the prime theatre.
The Schubert group was in talks to take over another theatre but I have not heard of what happened.
Will this headquarters contain any movie theaters or live stages?
The new headquarters of CAA (Creative Artists Agency) is to be constructed on the site of the former ABC Entertainment Center.
I was just in Los Angeles this past weekend and can confirm that,
indeed the Century Plaza is history. Not only the movie theater,
but the Shubert also. In fact, the entire ABC Entertainment Center
is nothing but a big hole in the ground! Anyone have a clue what
will be taking it’s place?
I saw “Gandhi” at the Century Plaza when it was the Plitt Century Plaza. I came a second time around 1990 to see a re-release of “Sparticus” when the theater was operated by Cineplex. I remember from my second trip to the Century Plaza that they sold beer. As far as I know this was unique to the Century Plaza among theaters in the Los Angeles area at that time.
During the 1960s when Century City was developed Downtown, Los Angeles was losing out to West Los Angeles as the center of the city for business and culture. This was underscored by the building of the Century Plaza Cinemas and the nextdoor Schubert Theater. The Welton Beckett designs of Century City are truly iconic to this period. Now the trend has reversed. The movement is back to downtown and is highlighted by the demolition of both of these facilities.
This complex was built on the former backlot of 20Th Century-Fox. The Fox studio was second in size only to Universal before the backlot was redeveloped. The Fox studio sat on very expensive real estate sitting between Beverly Hills and the Westwood area of West LA.The former backlot was sold due to the cost overruns on “Cleopatra” which eventually showed a profit and nearly put Fox out of business. The backlot was developed into Century City which became one of the most sought after office space in LA. The ABC Entertainment Center which comprised the Shubert and Century Plaza along with a mall was never very successful. The Shuberts had to spend money a few times remodelling the Shubert to get it right. The Shubert at least had a few successful long runs. The Century Plaza only was successful during the exclusive run era and even then they had to play second fiddle to Westwood and also the AMC Century 14.brucec
The Los Angeles film festival “Filmex” used this theater in the early 1980s. It was a classy venue, and I’m very sad to read of its demolition. What is going to be built on its site?
This theater will always have a warm place in my heart. I would take the bus from the San Gabriel valley (too young to drive) all the way out to the Century Plaza to see “Star Wars”. They ran it in 70mm for what seemed like eternity. I saw it there in the main auditorium at least 10 times! Even TRAILERS were “an event” there! The ones that stick out were the 70mm trailer for “Jaws 2”, and “Best Little Whorehouse”. I was very sad to hear it’s gone. Before it was 4-lexed, this was hands-down the best show in L.A., and an important piece of my history.
What, in their great wisdom, are they going to build on this site to replace the theatre? Wasn’t this site originally the backlot of one of the studios, possibly Fox? [20th CENTURY Fox = CENTURY Plaza]
Just to put an update here, it’s no longer “soon to be demolished”, it IS demolished. There’s nothing left but the metal skeleton of the place (they are taking it down piece-by-piece), and even that will be gone very soon.
This place had the most comfortable chairs of all time. I wish I had been around to visit when it seated 1400!
When “Chicago” was playing on the weekends, the main room was packed wall-to-wall. I remember one Saturday in particular, and the trailers before the movie included “Le Divorce”, “View From The Top”, and “How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days”. I saw that room packed with happy people having a good time and thinking why oh WHY couldn’t this last forever. When Chicago left and they started showing things like the remake of “The Italian Job” and “League Of Extraordinary Gentleman” I stayed away, because I wanted to remember it for that last really good night I had there.
I’m from the east coast, but I happened to catch STAR WARS here in July of 1977. It was my first and only visit to that theatre and it was a most memorable one. A truly optimum presentation of that movie.