Wildfires Shutter Handful Of Los Angeles Cinemas, Weekend Box Office To Be Impacted
The Pacific Palisades wildfire had led to roughly ten cinema closures in Los Angeles, the nation’s No. 1 box office capital.
Of those shuttered effective today are the AMC Americana in Glendale, the AMC Universal City Walk (the Uni Theme Park is closed today), AMC Topanga 12, Regal Sherman Oaks, the iPic Pasadena, and the Regal La Canada 8 among others. Reopening dates are TBD.
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In the core of the Pacific Palisades wildfire is the historic Bay Theater, which is owned by local real estate developer and mayoral candidate Rick Caruso, and operated and booked by Netflix. The cinema’s website reads that the Bay Theatre is currently closed due to the fires. Deadline has reached out to Caruso properties on the current state of the Bay Theater and we’ll update accordingly. Distribution sources tell us that the venue was spared by the fires. Caruso told the L.A. Times that the shopping center where the Bay Theater resides, suffered damage in a neighborhood that was “fully engulfed” in flames. He has owned the plaza since 2018.
Showtimes are also postponed at the American Cinematheque in Hollywood which is owned and operatd by Netflix.
Still opened and operating for business is AMC’s Burbank, CA location, which is repeatedly one of the highest grossing cinemas in the nation, as well as AMC’s The Grove (owned by Caruso), and AMC Century City 15. There haven’t been any movie theaters in the LA market damaged by the recent wildfire outbreak.
With evacuation orders in place for various parts of the city, as well as those in safe zones being encouraged to stay off the roads, the sentiment for moviegoing this week, and into this weekend, for a market which grossed over $681M last year, and reps some 8% of the total domestic box office, doesn’t look good. Lionsgate’s Gerard Butler movie, Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, is one of two wide openers set to do between $11M-$13M. It will be a three-movie run-off for No. 1 with Christmas holdovers Mufasa and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 which are both looking to ease -45% in their fourth weekends with around $12M apiece. Paramount has the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man expanding to 1,200 theaters with an eye at a low single digit take. The movie from The Greatest Showman filmmaker Michael Gracey has been in exclusive LA & NYC release since Christmas Day and counts a running total just under $100K. Paramount took North America, Japan and France rights to the film for $25M as Deadline first reported.
Already, various industry events have cancelled around town due to the fire including the premieres for Universal’s Wolf Man, Paramount’s Better Man, Roadside Attraction’s The Last Showgirl, and Amazon MGM’s Unstoppable. The Critics Choice Awards, set to take place Sunday at the Barker Hanger at the Santa Monica Airport, was pushed to Jan. 26.
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