Cinerama Dome & Hollywood Arclight Could Reopen In Sony Deal
EXCLUSIVE: There’s some serious buzz in town that Sony is about to resuscitate the Cinerama Dome and Hollywood Arclight multiplex which has been shuttered since Covid 2020. The Culver City lot is currently in talks, we hear, with the Robertson Property Group on lease to reopen the historical cinema venue.
Details are still be worked out in addition to a reopening date.
Sources are also under the impression that the Sony owned theater-dine-in chain Alamo Drafthouse would play a role in the resurrection of the Cinerama Dome and Hollywood Arclight.
The property, located at 6360 Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, CA, was formerly operated by Pacific Theaters and Arclight. The Cinerama Dome and Hollywood Arclight was set to reopen in May 2021 for Paramount’s A Quiet Place Part II and Disney’s Cruella. However, the Forman Family owned umbrella Group, Decurion, which held Arclight Cinemas and Pacific, as well as Robertson Property Group (RPG), fell under financial distress due to Covid and was forced to enter Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Several Arclights across the country were closed and rescued by other exhibitors, i.e. Regal took over the Sherman Oaks Galleria and the Arclight Pasadena, while Amazon took on the Arclight Century City.
We have heard for sometime that the Forman family was taking secret meetings with exhibitors and studios for a new operator of the Cinerama Dome and Hollywood Arclight. AMC and Amazon MGM Studios are among those who we know who kicked the tires and passed. We understand the Forman family would like to continue owning the crown jewel cinema venue. We also understand that due to the Chapter 7 proceedings, the Arclight name cannot be used in any future iterations of the property.
Pacific Theatres founder William R. Forman announced the construction of the Cinerama Dome in July 1963 at a star-studded groundbreaking ceremony attended by Spencer Tracy, Buddy Hackett, Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, Edie Adams and Dorothy Provine. Forman had committed to United Artists that the Dome would be ready for the November 7, 1963, world premiere of the first movie filmed in the new 70mm, single-strip Cinerama process: Stanley Kramer’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World. Construction was rapid, taking only 16 weeks. Before the pandemic hit, the Cinerama Dome had a starry cameo in Quentin Tarantino’s Oscar winning, Sony distributed 2019 feature Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
The Cinerama Dome is the only concrete geodesic dome on Earth. The theater is made up of 316 individual hexagonal and pentagonal shapes in 16 different sizes. Each of these pieces are roughly 12 feet across and weigh around 7,500 pounds.
The Arclight Cinemas multiplex opened in 2002 with 15 screens that featured stadium seating. The venue was ahead of its time in regards to the placement of seats: Their front row seats were a located a distance from the screen at an eye-level for moviegoers (with no strain on the neck).
Soon after Sony vacated its bid for Paramount Pictures in the summer of 2024, they snapped up the Austin-based Alamo Drafthouse Chain known for his cinephile programming, deluxe wine and beer and comfort food menu, and their Fantastic Fest genre film festival.
Sony did not respond to request for comment.
