Regency Village Theatre

When THX was the big thing in theatres the annual THX certification fee was $10,000. If you look back at some of those Edwards plexes they built, before they were sold. They would build the plex with 2-4 THX houses and about a year late the THX logos came off the screens and walls ads in the theatres. The reason for two theatres is the main house runs the “A List” guests and the second screen is the over flow house. The old Plitt/Cineplex Century Plaza was a big favorite with the studios on premieres. Since they had a built in drive for limos in front and they had the big screen and the second large house and later the twins in the rear of the large house. As segask said it was a major problem with area businesses on premiere nights. And for anyone who has ever been in or seen the Westwood traffic at that time of the day, It sucks. For premieres the studio would do a sound tech with Dolby techs and studio projection staff
and then do a run though of the picture and after that goes well. Wait till the evening show time. In the old days the union projectionist would be the operator for the show. On problem with having no other theatre near by to move-over the film playing there is the studio has to buy out the whole day for the film playing there.

I’ve heard that the businesses in westwood don’t like all the premieres. They usually lose money on premiere nights because they don’t get much business from the fans lining the streets, and their regular customers stay away on premiere nights, because of traffic and parking hassles during premieres.

Thanks William and Brad. That is so true about the diminishing returns to the theater, even starting as early as after opening weekend.

One final point….Do the Village and Bruin make enough from holding the premieres to cover the nut? Any idea what a studio has to pay to rent the theater for a premiere? And someone mentioned that the lease was about $1 million a year for the Village and Bruin.

By staying a single screen theatre you are limited in product. If you play first run because of contracts with the studios as to how long the engagements are. Studios like to lock up first run screens for 4 to 8 weeks on Big pictures. Thats if you don’t have one of those high end directors that demands more & more. As with everything like home and work these theatres run on budgets that the home office sets for each manager and the type of business. For payroll you are budgeted for how many people you sell tickets too. So for the first week or 2, the theatre is doing great. But in your third week it drops 60% from the last and your stuck with the film for a 6 week run. Everything is downhill from that point. You have to drop people from the payroll of the week. Now rent and power , water and all the other bills like candy and popcorn and soda all need to be paid. I remember this theatre that was on a COD plan with the candy people, and they could not pay a few times. (No Candy delivery) Over on the Fox Atlanta theatre tread a fromer manager wrote near the end of the theatre’s operating life it took about $1000 a day to just open and operate for the day with payroll and all the other things I wrote about in this post. Ok that was 1975 and maybe the bookings were ok to fair. But the same thing goes for how a theatre runs in todays market. You have to have a good location and good bookings and being able to move-over the films for a good turn over. Look at the final months of the National Theatre. They got fair bookings but they had to holdover on some weeks and died because of the contracts and the landowner could make more on something else on the site. Ok today he owns a Christmas tree lot in Westwood. For the most part the Village Theatre is safer, because of the entire theatre is close to original look than the Bruin. The Bruin Theatre only has the marquee facade working for it to be saved. The auditorium is no longer in an original state with the side wall lighting. As a vanity project someone with deep pockets would work. But even those people want a return on their investment. I guess the area residents got a toned down version of Westwood more to their liking from the 1980’s version of the mad house.

Premieres for Furry Vengeance Apr 18 @ Bruin and Back Up Plan Apr 21 @ Village have been added. Looks like business as usual for these theatres.

Clash of the Titans @ Bruin in 3D April 1st, day before opens officially.

Chris, bet every dollar you have that if there was ever a chance in the last ten years anyone could have built a Bruin adjunct cinema, it would have happened ten years ago. There are very specific reasons why it hasn’t happened yet, and why it’s not going to happen for many years. Parking is just one issue. Traffic is just one issue. Residents are just one issue. Film clearances are just one issue. And there are many others that I just cannot discuss here… not that I am some insider. I just happen to know certain things from being near the process.

Westwood could easily be resurrected. But it’s going to take a lot of concessions from many different people with dissimilar interests to make it happen.

That’s what happened to all the First Run movie district in Los Angeles.
Downtown Los Angeles
Hollywood
Beverly Hills
Westwood

Everything moved West.

Of the two houses, I think the Bruin will be the first to close. The marquee facade is the only real semi-original parts left. While the Village is closer to original with the 1940’s remodel. It’s a sad state of affairs when you can maybe only keep one open.

That’s the big problem now trying to reinvent Westwood again. Back in the day, Mann Theatres was able to have a 5 mile clearance on bookings for his Westwood houses. So Westwood and Hollywood had a Lock on the films playing Mann houses. Once that clearance was dropped Century City, Santa Monica just to name afew could play date and date with Westwood. And add the problems with zoning, parking and the people problems. It was easier to go to Century City, Santa Monica and other newer complexes. Westwood died a slow death. Look at the guy over at The Crest Theatre. He wants to sell the theatre and lease it back to run. Eric Chavez has been trying to find a buyer for a long while. AMC is still running the Avco Complex, but who knows how long that old GCC lease runs for. UA dropped out of the market. At one time they wanted to reinvent their Hollywood Flagship house the Egyptian by doing a Arclight setup around the large house there. The city zoning stopped that project. At least the theatre still stands in a somewhat restored way.

But part of Arclight’s “thing” is their Cafe. Heck…the Cafe is as much a part of their brand as their name. Should this MIRACLE come to pass, I’m 99.9% certain that the Cafe will be there too. Maybe not inside the Village…but it’ll be there in some way, shape or form.

DISCLAIMER: I – OR NO ONE ELSE – IS SAYING THAT ARCLIGHT IS TAKING OVER THE VILLAGE/BRUIN. We’re just doing a little friendly armchair quarterbacking.

But, as someone stated earlier, it’s gonna be hard as heck filling 1300 seats on a 3rd week run of a whatever P.O.S. film is showing in January/February/March. Paring down the seats may help them to maximize numbers.

Although…they could use that extra space to make the Westwood Arclight Cafe a full-fledged restaurant.

I said it before and I’ll say it again…

Arclight takes over the lease, builds the 10 plex behind the Bruin & keeps it and the Village & calls the whole darn thing ARCLIGHT WESTWOOD. Arclight’s name ALONE would drive folks back to Westwood Village in DROVES!

They could even reduce the seating in the Village to 600 seats or so by extending the lobby and making that extra space their Gift Shop/Guest Services area.

The pre-WW2 Alameda Theatre in Alameda, Ca., was finally saved after operating as a gym and is now the main entrance to a plex of cinemas smaller auditoriums.
If this simple plan were to be implemented with more historic theaters going dark then that would save many more of our nations treasures.