1990 ORANGE COUNTY : Depth of Commitment to Be Measured : MOVIES

Movie-going in Orange County will be stronger and more mainstream than ever over the next decade, industry insiders say, in tandem with an ambitious building program by the county’s major theater chain.

Edwards Cinema, which operates 200 screens for first-run commercial fare throughout Southern California, plans to add another 100 screens during 1990 alone. Advertising director Bladen Thompson says most will come in Orange County, where Edwards now has 105 screens, with the main concentration in South County.

Meanwhile, the high price of real estate is likely to keep the number of art-movie houses basically where it now is for the early ‘90s. So says Stephen Gilula, president of the San Francisco-based Landmark Theatre Corp., which operates the Balboa Cinema in Newport Beach and the Port Theatre in Corona del Mar among 82 screens nationwide.

Landmark expects to reopen the old Fox Theatre movie palace in Fullerton as a renovated three-screen complex showing both mainstream and art-house fare in late 1990 or early 1991. But the chain doesn’t anticipate any further expansion in the county over the next few years.

“I think the market for art films is strong down there,” Gilula said, “but not strong enough to justify the extremely high cost of real estate. You have to have big-grossing films to support that kind of investment.”