To Vie With Westside : Film Complex Aims at Broadening Fare
San Fernando Valley movie buffs will no longer have to go to the Westside to see offbeat pictures such as a new Kurosawa film or an old Preston Sturges one, developers who plan to build a $10-million, 17-screen theater complex in Universal City said Tuesday.
The complex, which the developers, MCA and Plitt Theatres, said will be the world’s largest, will show art films and revivals, now as scarce in the Valley as ocean views, as well as more conventional movies, Plitt executive Garth Drabinsky said in a telephone interview.
The complex is scheduled to open in June, 1987.
“We’re going to program with as much breadth as possible,” said Drabinsky, president and chief executive of both Plitt and Cineplex Odeon Corp. of Toronto, which heads a partnership that recently acquired Plitt. Cineplex operates multiscreen theaters in Canada and the United States, including the 14 screens in the Beverly Center.
Location Called Ideal
Drabinsky said the East Valley is an ideal location for the entertainment project because it contains an estimated 1 million potential ticket buyers who “don’t have a multitude of choice.” He said the theaters will feature something-for-everyone programming and cafe-style concessions in an indoor, “gardenlike setting.” He described it as “the biggest and most unique project we’ve ever done.”
“This will be a significant upgrade over the Beverly Center,” Lawrence D. Spungin, executive vice president of MCA Development Co., a partner in the project, said Tuesday. “It’s not going to be the tiny-little-screen-and-cracker-box theaters that are typical of theaters in shopping centers.”
Besides offering consumers of cinema an alternative to pictures such as “Commando,” the complex will have extensive parking, extensive security, two 100-seat cafes and real butter on its popcorn, the developers said. Its location just off the Hollywood Freeway should also be a plus, they said.
As the developers of the complex pointed out, the Beverly Center theaters were shaped, for better or for worse, by the shopping complex that contains them. The Valley theaters will occupy a two-story building on the grounds of Universal City, built from scratch and including amenities unique in Los Angeles, the planners said. Its 17 auditoriums will range from 225 to 800 seats, with a total of 5,600. An Art Deco lobby will have skylights, windows and junglelike foliage. There will be parking for 1,400 cars next to the complex.
‘Secure Environment’
The developers said they think the complex’s “secure environment” will be a major draw. “It’s a consideration for everyone, especially for females who don’t want to go to the movies with a date or their husbands,” Drabinsky said. Access to Universal City, MCA’s 420-acre headquarters, is limited by parking gates and security booths.
Drabinsky speculated that concern about security has contributed to the decline of the once-packed movie palaces of the Hollywood area. “I don’t think a lot of people are excited by going to Hollywood today,” he said. “That’s why Beverly Center did so well, because there was an alternative with parking and security.”
Long Drive for Offbeat Films
Valley film buffs have had to drive to Westwood or Beverly Hills to see foreign films or other movies without mainstream appeal.
Laemmle’s Town & Country in Encino is now the only complex in the Valley that regularly features an art film on one of its three screens. Burbank lacks a walk-in theater of any kind, although a 10-screen complex is scheduled to open late next year.
Drabinsky did not predict that the center would prompt a sudden reversal in the flow of Saturday-night traffic, causing fun-seekers to drive into the Valley instead of out of it.
But he did say, “If it’s special enough, I think people will come from all over Los Angeles.”
