For Ben Steinberg, seven years of activism in the name of cinema are finally bearing fruit.
The Cal State Northridge film student behind the social media account Save Your Cinema has urged film lovers in Los Angeles to support independently owned theaters and to join the grassroots movement to reopen the beloved Cinerama Dome, which has been closed since Arclight Cinemas went out of business following the COVID pandemic.
Now, as the Cinerama Dome prepares to reopen under the stewardship of Alamo Drafthouse in 2028, Steinberg is getting directly involved in reopening another L.A. treasure as the special events and marketing director of the Bruin Theatre in Westwood. It is part of a wave of historic cinemas that will open their doors again across the city with the help of new investors and operators — and efforts are underway to add to that growing list.
“It has been exciting to see. I’ve been contacted by so many people around the world asking for advice on how to reopen their theaters,” Steinberg said. “It’s been a domino effect as business leaders and theater operators are working together to get historic cinemas open again.”
Opened in 1937, the Bruin became a weekend hangout spot for generations of residents and UCLA students as it was operated by Fox West Coast, Mann and Regency Theatres until 2024, when the latter let its lease expire.
Earlier this year, Toronto-based theater owner Rui Pereira picked up the lease on the Bruin and is working with Steinberg to update the theater with 35mm/70mm projectors ahead of a soft reopening this fall. The duo plans to hold open houses and press screenings for the new theater sometime in October, with the hopes of a wider opening shortly after with new and classic screenings. The Bruin may also be used for film premieres as it was alongside the Westwood Village Theatre when it was operated by Regency, but those plans are still in the works.
The Bruin’s reopening is one of several theaters, along with the adjacent Fox Westwood Theatre, the Cinerama Dome, and the recently refurbished Alex Theatre, that are part of a citywide revitalization of Los Angeles’ movie palaces all happening independently of each other. The growth comes as the industry has seen a massive box office resurgence in 2026, especially for traditional film formats that drove significant box office for movies like “The Odyssey,” “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” and drew the attention of young, Letterboxd-using Angelenos to historic theaters that offered those formats.
“None of this is coordinated, but it is answering a real love for movies that has been there in spite of what some Hollywood executives might think,” Pereira said. “It’s not just ‘The Odyssey.’ People want to see these movies on a big screen because we spent so long just seeing those movies at home where it’s just television. It’s not special. They want to go to theaters that value movies and know how to make them special.”
Even as the Cinerama Dome and Bruin were closed, there have been other cinemas both historic and modern answering the overwhelming cinephile demand in L.A.
The Vista Theatre in Los Feliz sold out 70mm and VistaVision screenings of “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” for weeks. The American Cinematheque-operated Aero Theatre in Santa Monica screens classic movies and has become a launchpad for acclaimed movies like “Marty Supreme” and “No Other Choice” through the annual Beyond Fest. The Eagle Theatre in Eagle Rock has also become a major spot among cinephiles thanks to its revival by the indie video rental store Vidiots, screening modern classics and hosting Q&As with filmmakers like Edgar Wright, who screened his 2010 cult hit “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” this past weekend.
And then there’s The New Beverly Cinema, owned by Quentin Tarantino, which doesn’t have the history of the Bruin or the visual pop of the Vista’s Egyptian-themed lobby. But it has kept a loyal following by screening classic films ranging from Alfred Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps” to millennial nostalgia offerings like “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”
“Programming brings personality, and people are drawn to that, even for films that they can watch on their phones,” said Escott Norton, member of the board of directors and advocacy chair at the Los Angeles Historic Theater Foundation. “Theaters are not just about the pretty box. It’s about the community around them, and Los Angeles is filled with so many communities and enclaves that can be served by giving people a place to watch movies together.”
The Cinerama Dome dam finally breaks
No theater has gotten more attention in Los Angeles than the Cinerama Dome, partly because it was the historic theater that was the preferred place to watch movies by the people who made movies. Over the past five years, Steinberg has called on Chris Forman, CEO of the Decurion Corp. and owner of the Cinerama Dome through the Robertson Property Group, to reopen the theater, with plans for a relaunch stalling out in 2024 with no public explanation. The protests crescendoed this past spring when Steinberg projected Forman’s face onto the Dome with a demand to reopen the theater, after which Steinberg announced he would put his pressure campaign on pause to avoid legal action.
But now a plan is in place courtesy of Alamo Drafthouse, which over the course of 2027 will give the adjacent multiplex formerly known as Arclight Hollywood a major overhaul to update its audio/visual systems, lobby, kitchens and auditoriums to fit the chain’s dine-in theater model. The Dome itself will not be converted into a dine-in and will remain a conventional theater, though Alamo is planning on updating amenities.
According to Escott Norton and Drafthouse CEO Michael Kustermann, Decurion had been in talks for several years about the Cinerama Dome, laying out plans for how to reopen the theater as part of a larger revitalization of the mixed-use complex surrounding it, which now holds the Blue Note Jazz Club.
But Decurion was no longer interested in operating the Dome as it did under Arclight Cinemas, and was looking for the right theater company to lease the Dome to. Kustermann said that while Alamo had been in talks with Decurion for some time, those discussions picked up significantly after Sony acquired the chain in 2024, providing the financial backing for refurbishment and operation that Decurion was looking for.
“In the months and years following its closure, the Cinerama Dome was something that was always of interest to Alamo, even before Sony acquired us,” Kustermann said. “From both a geographic standpoint in the heart of Hollywood and an experiential standpoint with how many people have fond memories of seeing movies there, it fits perfectly into our vision of moviegoing.”
Like the Mission Theatre before it, Alamo said it plans to update the Dome with modern comforts while preserving the spirit of the theater, which was opened in 1963 to show off the three-strip and 70mm Cinerama film format that was projected onto a curved screen for films like “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World,” “Grand Prix” and “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
But one question that will face Alamo is what formats to present in the Dome. Two sources told TheWrap last year that there is a divide among cinephiles and top filmmakers about the Dome’s ability to present standard 70mm film. The Dome’s projector room is aligned in a way that projects Cinerama 70mm film perfectly onto its curved screen, but isn’t perfectly aligned for standard 70mm formats for films shot with Ultra Panavision cameras like the ones used by Ryan Coogler on “Sinners.”
While some filmmakers were fine with screening their films in 70mm in the Dome in the 2010s such as Christopher Nolan with his 2017 film “Dunkirk,” sources say that at least one filmmaker preferred to screen the 70mm print of their film in the Arclight multiplex rather than the Dome to avoid the curved mismatch. Fixing the Dome to allow for better projection of standard 70mm would require a major refurbishment of the projector room to realign it with the curved screen.
Kustermann declined to comment on the 70mm issue, saying that Alamo still had to hold meetings with its projection team to build out its plans for the Dome. But Kustermann did say that Alamo plans to support multiple film formats in the theater as repertory screenings will be a major part of the programming featured in the Dome.
“We’re still very early in forming our plans for the Dome, but we have an incredibly talented projection team that is focused on preserving and enhancing the experience people love in that theater,” he said. “Of course we will play the biggest blockbusters at the Dome, but the fact that it has so much history brings a huge opportunity for curation. We’ve always made repertory screenings and live Q&As a big part of our identity at Alamo, so bringing that to what will be one of our largest auditoriums in our chain at a place that is so beloved by filmmakers will give us a chance to create something very special for movie lovers.”
The Hollywood Pacific standoff and more reopenings
The light may be at the end of the tunnel for the Cinerama Dome, but Steinberg said he’s not done knocking on Decurion’s doors. While his focus is currently on the Bruin, he is also pushing for Forman to reopen the Hollywood Pacific Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, a century-old cinema that was the first theater designed to show films with sound and where a young Carol Burnett worked as an usher, leading her to request that her Walk of Fame star be placed in front of its closed marquee.
But the theater has remained dormant for decades. LAHTF told TheWrap that it spent years convincing Robertson Property Group to abandon plans to demolish the theater to build a new mixed-use hotel/restaurant space, arguing that the Hollywood Pacific could be used as an anchor business. But Robertson has gone silent, cutting off talks with LAHTF after promising feasibility studies to reopen the theater.
The Robertson Property Group did not respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
“It’s still in good condition. There are YouTubers who have gotten inside and posted videos,” Steinberg said. “It is another part of movie history that we can and should preserve but the Formans have refused to talk about it.”
Norton is also focused on the Theatre District on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, where groups like the Secret Movie Club and Cinespia have screened classic films occasionally in the theaters that have not been converted into retail spaces like the Million Dollar Theater. While the downtown area has seen numerous store and restaurant closures since the pandemic, Norton is optimistic that the area can still support a fully operating theater like the Bruin or Cinerama Dome as long as there is someone willing to invest the time, money and patience to make those theaters a destination for locals and visitors alike.
“All we need are private investors, with perhaps some public support, and the understanding that they might lose money for a while,” Norton said. “But if there’s an operator dedicated to training people to come downtown to watch movies and help build an area where there’s four or five things to choose from, we can have a bustling center of Los Angeles again.”
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