Family Pictures

The twin-screen movie theater on busy Tustin Avenue in Orange had sat empty for five years when Todd Blood found it, the ‘50s-era relic long ago having been turned into a 99-cent discount movie house.

“They used to call it the sticky-floor theater, and it was hideous,” Blood says.

But Blood saw beyond the filthy carpet, the torn screens, the broken seats and the two narrow, bowling alley-like theater auditoriums--the result of a single-screen theater being split in half in the ‘70s.

Instead, he saw opportunity.

A former classic German car dealer who had longed to own a movie theater since he was a teenager making short films with his dad’s Super-8 camera, Blood, 40, envisioned making his long-delayed dream come true.

He would sink more than $440,000 into the theater for demolition, design, reconstruction and state-of-the-art projection and sound equipment to create a popular spot for moviegoers that doubles as a sometime community center. He’d do it by tapping his life savings, getting loans and straining his family’s daily budget to its limit as he, friends and relatives rebuilt the place over two years.

But not before getting the go-ahead from his family.

“I knew it was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up,” said Blood’s wife, Cathy, 40.

The couple, who have been married eight years, have five children--two from his previous marriage, one from hers and two together: Melissa, 15; Alicia, 13; Lauren, 13; Elizabeth (Libby), 6; and Luke, 3.

“We sat the older kids down and explained to them, ‘This is going to be hard. We’ll be living in an apartment for a while. We’ll be sharing rooms.’ And they said, ‘Yeah!’

“We wanted to make them a part of the decision so they wouldn’t regret it down the line.”

One Evening He Made a Wrong but Fateful Turn

It was the birth of Libby in 1993 that inspired Blood to buy the theater.

Born three months premature and weighing only 2 pounds, 12 ounces, Libby spent 28 days in the neonatal intensive-care unit. “They told us she had almost no chance of survival, but she beat all the odds,” Blood said.

One evening, as they kept a vigil in the hospital, Blood went to get food for Cathy. But he got lost, making a fateful wrong turn down Tustin Avenue.

Spotting the trashed Villa Theater in a small, nearly vacant shopping center, Blood pulled into the parking lot. As he peered at the lobby through the box-office window, he immediately saw what it could be.

Thinking of his tiny daughter winning her struggle to survive, Blood decided to go for it.

“I just figured if I was being allowed to have such a phenomenal spirit be in my life that I better be the best I could be,” he said. “To know what the odds were and see this little kid overcome this made me feel like what a baby I had been my whole life. It made me feel guilty. It made me want to pursue my lifetime dream.”

And, he said, “I’ve never looked back.”

Captain Blood’s Village Theater--named in honor of Blood’s ancestor, a 17th century pirate--opened in the fall of 1995 with second-run films.

But, like characters in a movie, there were plenty of obstacles along the way.

Blood did construction work and handyman jobs to buy materials.

“Some days work came to a halt because there was no more money,” he recalled.

The family put off plans to buy a house and shared the same room in a one-bedroom apartment until the theater was built. The Bloods’ three older girls sleeping in bunk beds, their infant daughter sleeping in a crib in the hallway.

“We lowered our cost of living to an absolute bare minimum,” said Blood, who drove a battered station wagon he bought for $50. The family curtailed weekend outings, and the kids took sack lunches to school.

“We all made quite a few sacrifices,” Blood said. Once the theater was up and running, the family was able to lease a four-bedroom house.

Until five months ago, Blood worked at the theater seven days a week.

Although Cathy Blood is a stay-at-home mom whose days are filled with driving the kids to piano lessons and soccer and softball games, she has pulled her share of theater duty--from running the box office to threading the projector.

The Bloods’ children also lend a hand.

The three oldest work at the theater during the summer and for a few hours on weekends during the school year. They also take turns accompanying their dad to the theater after school.

Melissa, who knows how to thread the projector, usually works in the box office; Lauren and Alicia work the concession-stand cash register.

“They can run the theater by themselves,” Blood said.

Even when the children are there just to see a movie, he said, “they’ll pitch in. It’s their theater.”

That was clear on a recent evening.

“Lauren, go upstairs and make sure the picture is in focus; Alicia, Theater Two,” instructed Blood shortly after the family arrived.

Creating a Community in an Era of Megaplexes

Once the movie in Theater One ended, Melissa, Alicia and Lauren grabbed brooms and dustpans and, without being asked, went to work picking up litter on the floor.

Even Libby, dressed in a long yellow dress and straw bonnet--her Jane costume from Disney’s animated “Tarzan”--helped pick up trash.

Luke--whose middle name is Harrison (“You can tell we’re ‘Star Wars’ and Harrison Ford fans,” Blood said)--was content to meander through the aisles eating popcorn, one of the perks of having theater-owner parents.

Four-and-a-half years after Captain Blood’s Village Theater opened with a special showing of “Gone With the Wind”--during which the film unceremoniously broke--the Bloods have no regrets.

Indeed, in an era in which multiplexes and megaplexes dominate the moviegoing landscape and mom-and-pop theater operations seem as rare as double bills, the Bloods have turned their twin-screen theater into a family-run success: They now show first-run movies, and attendance, spurred largely by word-of-mouth, continues to grow.

“You won’t find too many people in the business in Southern California that have one- or two-screen theaters exclusively,” said Milt Moritz, president of the National Assn. of Theater Owners of California/Nevada. “It’s usually a minimum of six screens or more. Today, to be competitive, you have to have a multi-number of screens.”

And for a single- or twin-screen theater owner to survive, “I think you have to find your own niche--something you can offer that the [megaplexes] don’t. I’m sure they offer very personalized service and cater to the neighborhood; it’s a hands-on type of operation,” Mintz said of the Bloods’ theater.

Indeed, the theater itself is a big part of the attraction.

The lobby, which features a self-service concession stand (free refills on large drinks and popcorn), has a “Star Wars” trilogy mural above the entrance.

Both the 155-seat Theater One and the 230-seat Theater Two have balconies and ceilings that resemble the night sky, courtesy of hundreds of tiny lights. Blood installed stadium seating and opera boxes in Theater One, which boasts a stage for live presentations and an airbrushed mural of Capt. Blood’s ship based on a thumbnail sketch from the pirate’s journal.

Even the men’s restroom is worth a peek: One wall is colorfully painted with movie-quote graffiti.

Perhaps most impressive to moviegoers is that both theaters are equipped with 8,200 watts of THX-approved sound equipment. Each theater has 12 speakers behind the screen, 24 “surrounds” and subwoofers underneath the floor, which is made of wood instead of concrete, “so when we really crank it in here,” Blood said, “you really feel it.”

The theater draws a loyal crowd of patrons who like the combination of high-tech movie presentation with an ambience reminiscent of the days when the theater itself was as much a part of the experience as what was on the screen.

But the Bloods have made their theater something of a community center as well. It’s been the site of more than 500 fund-raisers and special events. It’s served as a main venue for the Newport Beach International Film Festival. And the family makes it available to student filmmakers for screening their films for friends and family members.

“That’s such a great gift to the students because they all want to see their movies in theaters--that’s their dream,” said Bob Bassett, dean of the School of Film and Television at Chapman University in Orange. “The fact that they see their name on the marquee and they take their friends in and buy a bag of popcorn and see their film is really great.”

Said Blood, who also has hosted Girl Scout troop movie-night sleepovers at his theater: “We are truly a community theater, which [rarely] exists anymore.”

As recently as 10 years ago, he said, Orange had eight theaters. Now it’s home to two megaplexes totaling 55 screens and Captain Blood’s Village Theater.

“This is a hard, hard business,” Blood said. “You have to find a niche, and we have.”

‘I Could Watch Movies All Day Long’

The Bloods, who went through one particularly lean year in which they ran the theater with no outside help, now have five employees. They bought a four-bedroom condo in Brea in April, and, Blood said, “we’ve returned to being able to spend some money on the kids every now and then.”

And while they are still paying off the business loan, the theater’s “been making money since Day One; it’s been great,” Cathy Blood said. Todd Blood said he made more money in the car business, “but I didn’t have the love and passion for it that I do for this.”

If the Bloods aren’t showing films, they’re watching them.

Blood estimates he sees about 400 films a year on the big screen, many of them at studio screenings for theater owners. He catches up on those he’s missed at the multiplex. There have been times when he’s seen as many as four films in one day.

And Cathy is usually in the seat next to him.

“She’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” Blood said. “She’s been completely supportive. She’s the only person who loved movies more than me.”

Said Cathy, laughing: “I know, we’re nuts. That’s why it’s been such a great match. I could watch movies all day long.”

The children share their parents’ passion for the movies.

Melissa said she’d like to be an actress--or the country’s first woman president; Lauren writes stories and helps make short films with Alicia, who has been making shorts since she was 9. Alicia saved nearly $2,000 to buy a high-resolution 8-millimeter video camera and plans to attend film school.

Although the Bloods plan to open another theater--they’ve made offers on three in Orange County--Todd Blood still harbors filmmaking dreams of his own.

He’s completed two unproduced screenplays, and he and Cathy are working on another. They’ve also set up two film distribution companies--one for independent features and the other for more mainstream pictures--and so far have released three films that were shown at their theater during the Newport Beach film festival.

They also have small-screen ambitions. Blood jokes that he’s the only person who ever bought a home based on its layout for taping TV shows.

The family’s new condo has a 3 1/2-car garage--large enough for the set Blood built to tape his interviews with young filmmakers for a planned cable-access series. (He has three shows in the can.)

The condo’s kitchen and dining room are suitable for taping a cable-access cooking show that the couple plan to produce. And the home’s cathedral ceilings are ideal for “family movie nights.”

At least twice a month, Blood selects a classic film he’d like his family to see. All seven Bloods pile onto the bed or sprawl on the pillow-strewn floor of the master bedroom, where a digital projector, complete with Surroundsound, throws a 12-by-25-foot image on the wall.

“I love family movie nights; it’s so much fun,” Lauren said. “I usually stay up and talk to my dad about the movies, the meaning and moral to them.”

For Blood, it’s a true Hollywood-style happy ending.

“I’m absolutely living the dream and loving it. It’s a fun life: The kids come to the theater, and it makes us happy. It just continues to reconfirm over and over that you’ve got to live your true life and be true to yourself. All of this sounds like an old movie, but it’s true.”

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Dennis McClellan can be reached at dennis.mclellan@latimes.com.