Cinerama

Other than “The Odyssey,” the biggest news in Los Angeles film circles last week was the return of the Cinerama Dome.

The iconic theater, which has been closed since March 2020, will be restored and reopened by Sony Pictures Entertainment and its Alamo Drafthouse theater chain. As my colleague Cerys Davies reported, renovations begin next month and will continue until early 2028.

For more than 60 years, the dome has been a landmark on Sunset Boulevard. With its 86-foot-wide curved screen, it has premiered such iconic Hollywood films as 1977’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and made a cameo of its own in 2019’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.”

Ever since the dome closed at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been questions about whether it would return. Filmmakers like “Anora” director Sean Baker and “Baby Driver” director Edgar Wright publicly called for its reopening, while a “Save Your Cinema” preservation campaign led by Benjamin Steinberg kept the geodesic icon in the public eye.

“It was definitely the capital of, like, the movie-going experience in L.A.,” Steinberg told my colleague, adding that he plans to visit the theater two to three times a week when it reopens. “I can’t wait to go back inside the Cinerama Dome and watch movies.”

The theater will be operated by Alamo Drafthouse, though Sony says it plans to keep the “Cinerama” name and exterior branding, as well as the dome’s “traditional concession experience” — meaning you won’t be able to order food and drinks to your seat. (Cinephiles recently have criticized the chain for changing its in-seat ordering system to require use of mobile phones in the theater.)

Alongside traditional theatrical showings, the dome also will include some Alamo Drafthouse specials, including repertory screenings, premieres, events and filmmaker series.

Adjacent to the dome, the 14-screen former ArcLight Cinemas will reopen as an Alamo Drafthouse, Sony said, offering dine-in food and beverages, as well as karaoke rooms and “fan celebrations.”

Sony was interested in the dome even before the Culver City-based studio acquired Alamo Drafthouse in 2024.

“It’s such a great location,” Ravi Ahuja, chief executive and chairman of Sony Pictures, told me. “It’s historic, people love it and the theater was successful before it closed. It’s one of a kind, which is the kind of experience we’re after.”

The move also highlights the opportunity Sony sees in the experiences business — an increasingly important strategy for Hollywood.

The Alamo Drafthouse acquisition was part of this, as was the studio’s recent $100-million investment and minority stake in Cosm, a virtual reality venue operator that has a location at Inglewood’s Hollywood Park.

The studio also has “Wheel of Fortune Live!,” a touring version of the popular game show, “Jeopardy! Bar League,” which was incubated at Alamo Drafthouse, and events for its streaming service Crunchyroll at anime conventions.

“It’s another leg of the franchise stool,” Ahuja said. “Fans want to engage in person with each other. It’s part of a human need when you have deep fandom around something.”

As the theatrical market waxes and wanes and the television business has become more unpredictable, it makes sense that studios like Sony increasingly look to diversify and attract fans in new ways.

After all, people have a lot of things they can do with their time and money. And after a period of slow returns since the pandemic, they’ve increasingly been coming back to in-person activities. To keep loyal fans in the fold, studios need to give them more ways to interact with the stories and entertainment they love, or they’ll move on.

Betting on the experiences business isn’t new. Walt Disney Co. makes the majority of its operating income not from its theatrical movies or streaming service, but from its theme parks and cruise line division. Last year, Universal opened Epic Universe, a major investment in its Orlando theme park resort that indicates the importance of this business for the company and owner Comcast.

But not every company wants or needs to start a theme park business. For one, it’s expensive. And for a studio like Sony, which doesn’t have a lot of kid-focused franchises, it doesn’t really make sense.

As a result, some are getting into the experiences space in more specific and limited ways, such as studio tours or branded attractions.

For Sony, that’s meant building a business around these in-person offerings that align more with its adult-leaning audiences. Lionsgate has a “John Wick Experience” in Las Vegas, while Warner Bros., among other things, recently debuted “Harry Potter: A Hogwarts Express Adventure” train event at the Southern California Railway Museum in Perris. (Universal licenses Harry Potter from Warner Bros. for inclusion in its parks.)

For most studios without a major theme park presence, this kind of location-based entertainment is still likely a relatively small part of their corporate revenue, potentially less than 1%, said Dennis Spiegel, founder and chief executive of the International Theme Park Services, Inc. consulting firm. But what these experiences do is help lengthen the life of a franchise by keeping licensing revenue flowing and keeping brands relevant between film releases, he said.

“Hollywood increasingly sees it as an essential part of maximizing the lifetime value of its intellectual property,” he wrote in an email. “In many ways, we have seen how these experiences have become as much of a marketing engine as they are a profit center.”

As for the Cinerama Dome, don’t take it as a sign that Sony is looking to build out an exhibition empire. The studio is looking for only special and selective deals like the dome, Ahuja said, and there are no plans to add more L.A. exhibition locations.

Stuff We Wrote

Film shoots

Number of the week

Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” continued its dominance at the box office in its second outing with a three-day domestic haul of $90 million, down only 27% from its debut weekend.

Internationally, the Universal Pictures film raked in $137.6 million for a worldwide total of $652 million.

The big box office performance came as an unauthorized copy of the film leaked online over the weekend. The studio said it “immediately initiated takedown protocols” once it became aware of theillegal posting on X and “will pursue all appropriate remedies to protect our content and intellectual property rights.” The post was viewed more than 2.1 million times before a takedown notice replaced the copy of the film.

What I’m watching

I did not expect Amazon MGM Studios’ “The Sheep Detectives” to deliver a profound message on death and grieving when I sat down to watch it with a friend, but those talking ovine sleuths really got to me.

The ongoing saga of the Cinerama Dome, among the most iconic movie theaters in Los Angeles, took another twist Tuesday. Reports surfaced that Sony and Alamo Drafthouse, the theater chain owned by the company, have been in talks to take over operation of the venue.

The theater and the adjacent 14-screen ArcLight Hollywood multiplex have been closed since March 2020. In April 2021 it was announced that the venue would not be reopening and it has sat dormant ever since, becoming the focus of intense public interest.

The news of Sony and Alamo’s interest in the property was first reported by Deadline. Representatives for Sony did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A city hearing in May regarding alcohol sales at the site provided a rare opportunity for public comment on the property.

“I know that this has been hard and it has seemed like the citizens versus the ownership — that’s not what it is,” local preservation advocate Kim Cooper said. “People want to come together and help and bring this place back.”

The Dome has long been owned by the family of William R. Forman — the founder of Pacific Theatres — who opened the Dome in 1963. In an interview with The Times following the May meeting, Elizabeth Peterson-Gower, a land use consultant representing the venue’s owners, said the owners hoped to have a reopening time frame “in the near future.”

Sony purchased the Austin, Texas-based Alamo Drafthouse in 2024, with venues in major cities all across the U.S., including L.A. Though the Drafthouse chain was rooted in a fan-friendly ethos and a notoriously strict no-phones policy in its theaters, the company has recently come under fire for switching up the ordering system for its in-seat food service, forcing patrons to pull out their phones during a movie.

The Cinerama Dome news comes on the heels of a strong summer of moviegoing, as audiences have been flocking to theaters to see movies such as “The Odyssey,” “Toy Story 5,” “Backrooms” and “Obsession.” There has been a newfound attention on theatrical presentation and film formats, including the limited number of venues capable of projecting Imax 70mm or 70mm film, around the country.

Theatergoing in L.A. has been undergoing a renaissance of its own. The Alex Theatre in Glendale is showing a first-run movie with “The Odyssey” for the first time since 1991, while the American Cinematheque has relaunched the Village Theatre in Westwood under the new name the Directors Village to acknowledge the consortium of filmmakers who took over ownership.

A city hearing concerning on-site alcohol sales provided the public a chance to air their opinions on the possible reopening of the Cinerama Dome and ArcLight Hollywood on Tuesday morning.

Though a final letter of determination is still to be issued, Tim Fargo, the associate zoning administrator in charge of Tuesday’s meeting, said he was “inclined to approve” the conditional-use permit under consideration. The permit would cover the Cinerama Dome, 14 adjacent auditoriums and a restaurant café with two outdoor spaces.

The Dome closed in March 2020 with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and in April 2021 it was announced that the venue would not be reopening. Film lovers in Los Angeles and around the world have since been hopeful the venue, seen by many as a symbol for Hollywood itself, could reopen.

During the meeting, Elizabeth Peterson-Gower, a land use consultant representing the owner and applicant Dome Center LLC, was asked if there was a timeline for reopening the theaters. She responded, “I too don’t have a schedule yet, but when I do, I’ll convey it to you.”

In a separate phone interview following the meeting Tuesday, Peterson-Gower referred to the approval of the conditional-use permit as a “milestone” in the process of reopening the theaters and added that ownership has noted the intense public interest around the Dome and the ArcLight and that “it will inspire a time frame in the near future.”

Throughout the meeting, Peterson-Gower referred to the success of the Blue Note jazz club that opened on a corner of the property in August 2025.

“What it proves to me is that the ownership cares greatly,” Peterson-Gower said after the meeting. “That’s a big undertaking and a big statement in favor of the fact that ownership care what’s there.”

Numerous other voices were heard throughout the hearing as well. Ted Walker, planning deputy for Council District 13, where the theater is located, said, “Too often we see [historic-cultural monuments] around our city sitting vacant. So we’re very supportive of anything to bring some life back into this. We know there’s a lot of love for the Cinerama Dome and we want to acknowledge the work of all the community members who are advocating for it. We believe resuming these operations will further enhance the vibrancy of Hollywood.”

Burbank City Council member Konstantine Anthony noted that he was a former usher at the Dome and also voiced support for the reopening.

More than 30 people provided public comment. Among those were Kat Kramer, daughter of filmmaker Stanley Kramer, director of “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” the very first film to play in the Dome in 1963, film critic Wade Major and Ben Steinberg, who has led a grassroots campaign to get the venue reopened.

The Blue Note Jazz Club undergoes construction near the Cinerama Dome on Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025, in Los Angeles.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

One commenter said, “Why have they kept it closed? Is this just a strategy to let it rot so that they can get building violations and just tear it down and build condos? There’s a lot of fear about what’s going to happen with this thing that people feel attached to. And to not answer questions over all this time has frankly been offensive.”

Another commenter said that the delays in reopening feel like ownership “keeping a bit of our heritage hostage from us.”

Even those who were asking for clear specifics from ownership were nearly all in favor of granting the conditional-use permit, which was the ostensible purpose of the meeting. As local preservation advocate Kim Cooper said, “I know that this has been hard and it has seemed like the citizens versus the ownership — that’s not what it is. People want to come together and help and bring this place back.”

Speaking after the meeting, Peterson-Gower noted her own history with the Dome, having been involved with many events there in the late ’80s and early ’90s when she was vice president of the Hollywood Athletic Club, located just a few blocks away on Sunset Boulevard.

“Everyone has a story about the Dome that’s lived here, even me,” she added. “I didn’t want to bring my personal life into the hearing, but I care passionately as well about it opening.”

While the final outcome of the hearing is still to be fully determined, all signs point to the permit being granted and the project being free to move forward.

“I was overwhelmingly pleased with the comments,” said Peterson-Gower. “I think that it shows that there’s a great historic use in a historic property and I think that people care passionately about it operating and are very, very proud of the property being here in Hollywood.”