For moviegoers, breathe the cradle of the industry. The pandemic has hit another victim in an industry that is causing significant losses. Popular cinema chain Pacific and Arclight announced on Monday afternoon that they will not reopen their doors after the end of the health emergency. There will be no happy ending in Hollywood for a much-loved local company that shut down its projectors over a year ago. The bad news comes just as California prepares for its full reopening, which dates back to June 15 as the state enforces vaccination rates and low coronavirus hospital admissions. Hope was not enough for the chain, which operates 300 theaters in the state. “Despite a tremendous effort in which all possible options have been exhausted, the company has no viable road ahead,” said Decurion company, which owns both chains, in a statement.
The Cinerama Dome has become one of Sunset Boulevard’s landmarks. The geodesic dome has been part of the Los Angeles Avenue landscape since it was inaugurated in 1963. Operated by Pacific since 2002 as part of the Arclight Hollywood complex, the iconic building was part of Quentin Tarantino’s tribute to a time when Once upon a time in Hollywood. The cinema is not only featured in the film, but was one of only five to exhibit its version on 70mm celluloid in the United States, a country that in 2019 had more than 41,700 screens spread across more than 5,400 complexes. They lost 174 screens, but there is still a long time to quantify the impact of the blow that caused the pandemic.
That exhibition of Tarantino’s latest film serves to explain what was lost this Monday. In one of the opening day midnight functions, in July 2019, a bug in the projector caused the second half to be digitally projected onto the screen, one of the largest in the world at 9.7 meters high. And 26 meters long. The show ended after 4:30 am with an awkward but happy audience. Once again the communion ceremony culminated in a temple for devotees.
And that was one of the most regretted aspects after Decurion’s announcement. “This sucks. Everyone who worked at Arclight loved movies and you could feel it,” wrote Rian Johnson, director of The last jedi Y Knives outDavid Ayers, screenwriter of Training day Y End of watch, He also shared what those rooms meant to industry professionals: It was my place for when I wanted to study a movie. And the dome was a sacred meeting place. Cinemas are too powerful an experience to let it fade. “
Gourmet rooms
Pacific Cinemas was founded in 1946 by William Forman. The big leap of the chain is mainly due to Christopher Forman, who took the lead in his father and grandfather’s business. It was he who began to point out a trend in 1997 that began to quickly adapt in the following decades around the world. Cinemas with premium service. The highest technology of projection, alcohol and gourmet food sales. Tickets, 20% more expensive than elsewhere. With that promise of luxury, 14 Arclight theaters opened in Hollywood. It was 2002 and no one was competing for that exclusive market. The experiment worked. The company went from $ 50 million in 2009 to $ 70 million three years later. Some local journalists believe Decurion made the announcement to negotiate overdue rents with landlords in complexes in high-end areas to buy time to obtain liquidity.
Then came the pandemic, a global evil that accelerated the transformation of the exhibition industry after the outbreak of the streamingThe crisis triggered by the great quarantine caused 70% of the operators of small and medium cinemas to warn that they would go bankrupt without the help of the federal government. The giants also maneuvered to avoid bankruptcy. This is what AMC did, which resumed operations on July 15, 2020, breaking the untouchable golden rule of exhibition by reducing the exclusivity period of titles to be displayed from three months to just 17 days. To digital platforms.
The support eventually came in the form of a subsidy for retailers. The $ 16 billion program promoted by the Donald Trump administration before it left the White House could transfer up to $ 10 million to museums, theater makers, concert promoters and theater operators who lost up to 90% of their revenues by 2020. was handed over in April. It may be too late, but viewers of hundreds of Pacific and Arclight movies are still waiting for a hero to save history.