Latino Movie Theater Chain Promised : Entertainment: Producer plans sites nationwide for growing audience. First would be in San Fernando.

Movie producer Moctesuma Esparza announced plans Tuesday to launch a national chain of Latino-themed theaters to serve growing numbers of Spanish-speaking moviegoers in urban neighborhoods across the country.

Esparza, who has produced such movies as “Selena” and “The Milagro Beanfield War,” said he plans to start with six movie houses, beginning with sites in San Fernando and the Northern California city of San Pablo.

“I want to take us back to the historically strong presence of Spanish-language theaters in the United States,” Esparza said at a news conference in the San Fernando Valley.

From the 1940s through the 1960s, there were 700 Spanish-language screens in the United States, and another 300 that showed Spanish-language fare part-time. There were 40 in Los Angeles alone, he said.

“I grew up on these,” he said. “But by the end of the ‘80s, they were all shut down.”

The theater chain--which will be called Maya Cinema--would give Latino-themed movies better distribution in underserved neighborhoods, he said, including those movies he plans to produce.

Esparza, an outspoken proponent of Latinos in Hollywood, said he has approval for his movie house in San Pablo and is negotiating for sites in Arizona and Illinois. He is looking for locations in East Los Angeles, Huntington Park and the Harbor area, but would not give any details on how the chain would be financed.

San Fernando has long expressed interest in building a theater-shopping complex to revitalize its downtown. Burbank-based developers Victor Georgino and Pueblo Contracting Services Inc.--which is working with Esparza--have each expressed interest in building a multiplex, said San Fernando City Administrator John Ornelas.

The San Fernando City Council is scheduled in October to enter an agreement with one of the developers, Ornelas said.

Severyn Aszkenazy, president of Pueblo Contracting Services, estimates the multiplex and shopping center would cost between $20 million and $30 million.

Esparza, who owns Buenavision Telecommunications Inc., said he would be a tenant in the Pueblo development.

Industry analysts say building a theater chain is expensive. The only individual who has succeeded in recent years is Magic Johnson, the former Laker basketball superstar who partnered with Sony Theaters.

Like Johnson--who opened theaters in Baldwin Hills and other predominantly black neighborhoods--Esparza hopes the Maya Cinema chain would become a community anchor. He plans to open the buildings for educational uses in the morning.

He said he will provide “cry

rooms” where parents can watch movies with their babies. Esparza said he envisions the theater as part of a complex that would include bookstores, restaurants and a plaza.

The chain, he said, is part of his larger vision to promote Latino films and directors. He told The Times last year that he and partner Bob Katz plan to produce 10 Latino-oriented, low-budget films with young, unknown directors.

Esparza said Tuesday that the Maya Cinema chain would dovetail with his larger production goals. In a large multiplex of 10 to 18 theaters, he would devote one or two screens to Spanish-language films and one to English-language movies aimed at Latinos.

Finally, he hopes to add a 10-cent surcharge to each ticket, which the theater would match and use to provide scholarships to local students.

There is already a huge Latino audience ready for Spanish language movies, he said.

“What’s missing,” he said, “is the screens.”