Goldwyn Co. Expands Into Theater Business

Samuel Goldwyn Jr. inherited more than a name from his father, the pioneer film producer who died in 1974 at the age of 91.

When the elder Goldwyn’s estate was finally settled in 1978, his son gained possession of 52 motion pictures, including such classics as “The Best Years of Our Lives,” “Wuthering Heights,” “Pride of the Yankees,” “Stella Dallas,” “Dead End” and “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.”

Goldwyn, a film producer in his own right who is now 58, decided to use his father’s film library to lead the Samuel Goldwyn Co. into film distribution. Since 1978, the Century City-based company has acquired rights to more than 500 motion pictures and added nearly 50 employees to its payroll. Revenues climbed to $18 million last year, and they are expected to more than double that this year, Goldwyn said.

The company has concentrated on the “specialized” film market, which draws heavily on foreign film production and typically attracts affluent, sophisticated moviegoers with movies such as “Gregory’s Girl,” “Another Time, Another Place,” “Stranger Than Paradise” and its most recent release, “The Perils of Gwendoline.”

Emboldened by success in this narrow market, the Goldwyn firm is now financing a new four-screen theater complex in West Los Angeles, which will offer both specialized and commercial films.

Goldwyn says he has invested $5 million in a 15-year lease for The Goldwyn Pavilion Cinemas in the Westside Pavilion shopping center now under construction at the corner of Westwood and Pico boulevards. The theaters will seat a total of 900, and Goldwyn says, “We hope to be ready before the Fourth of July.”

The theaters will be managed by the Landmark Theater Corp., a Los Angeles-based firm that also operates theaters in cities such as San Diego, Sacramento, Denver and Seattle. Goldwyn insists that Landmark will be under no obligation to exhibit his films.

Landmark President Steve Gilula says he sought Goldwyn as the theater’s financial backer on the basis of the Goldwyn Co.’s business dealings in recent years. Gilula praises Goldwyn for succeeding as a distributor of specialized films at a time when many others “have come and gone because it’s a . . . high-risk endeavor.”

Goldwyn says he has no immediate plans to invest in other theaters; instead, he is increasing his film distribution to 11 movies this year, up from six in 1984. He says the firm is also investing more heavily in film production.

Goldwyn says he expects the firm to produce four films in-house by the middle of next year, and he has plans to co-finance two or three motion pictures with other companies, with individual budgets ranging from $3 million to $7 million.

Although Goldwyn produced TV documentaries in the early 1950s, he returned to Hollywood and followed his father into movie production. The younger Goldwyn’s credits include “Man with a Gun” (1955), “Proud Rebel” (1958), “The Young Lovers (1965),” “Cotton Comes to Harlem” (1970) and “Come Back Charleston Blue” (1972).

During the 1970s, most of his energies were directed toward managing the affairs of his aging parents, Goldwyn says. He is the only child of his father’s 49-year marriage to stage and screen actress Frances Howard, who died in 1976. Under the terms of Frances Goldwyn’s will, the studio was bequeathed to the Motion Picture and Television Fund, a charitable organization that sold the Hollywood landmark to Warner Bros. for $35 million in 1980.

Goldwyn says that his decision to build a distribution company coincided happily with the rapid growth of “ancillary” markets of cable TV, videocassettes and independent TV stations hungry for programming. He has been able to finance the company’s growth through its revenues and some bank borrowings, and he says that, “At the moment, I have no interest in going public.” Since the company is privately held, Goldwyn declines to disclose its profits, other than to say it averages a 15% return on revenues.

Goldwyn suspects he is benefiting from the “Baby Boom” generation that has matured into an upwardly mobile group of moviegoers that seeks high quality American and European films.

“With the exception of teenagers, I can’t think of any other group that is as loyal a moviegoer,” Goldwyn says. “It may be that we’re dealing with a business that’s better than any of us realize.”