Cinerama Dome’s Grassroots Reopening Campaign Ends After Police Shut Down Projector Protest

The organizer of the grassroots campaign Save the Cinerama Dome, which seeks to reopen the famed 1960s movie palace on Sunset Boulevard after it closed with the shutdown of Arclight Cinemas, is pausing his work after police responded to a projector protest staged Friday night.

Cal State Northridge film student Ben Steinberg, whose social media account for the campaign has drawn more than 12,000 followers, projected an image of Chris Forman, CEO of Decurion Corporation and owner of the Cinerama Dome, along with the message “Mr. Forman: Reopen the Dome!”

LAPD officers were called to the Dome at 9 p.m. on Friday and instructed Steinberg, who was with a projectionist, to shut down the projector. Steinberg complied and no arrests or citations were made. A spokesperson with the LAPD confirmed details of the incident to TheWrap.

“I’m very sad that the Forman family threatened me with harassment claims and called the police on me,” Steinberg said in a statement to TheWrap. “I was trying to get their attention to reopen the historic Cinerama Dome and not leave it abandoned and falling apart like their other historic cinemas they own. I am ending the campaign since the family are billionaires and my lawyer advised me to end it to avoid them taking legal action against me. “

Steinberg told The Los Angeles Times that this is the first time that Decurion has responded to him in his five years of activism around the Dome. Forman and Decurion have been very tight-lipped about any possible plans to refurbish and open the Dome, much to the frustration of Steinberg and thousands of other Los Angeles film lovers who made the Dome one of the film industry’s most popular gathering spots while it was operated as part of Arclight’s flagship Hollywood location.

“When I first posted about it, I thought people wouldn’t care,” said Steinberg. “But it seems like the whole world cares about the Cinerama Dome. And I think too it’s more than the Cinerama Dome at this point. I think it just kind of represents the overall landscape of L.A. and America and how these large corporations can own historic buildings and keep them abandoned and then sort of push away people who want [them] to reopen.”

The only hints of any possible plans to reopen the Cinerama Dome have come in sporadic permit requests filed with the city. The most recent came this past October, when representatives for Decurion filed an application for a conditional use permit to renew the theater’s alcoholic license, which included the promise that jobs and improved street safety would be brought to the area “when the theater reopens.” Still, the permit request offered no timetable for such a reopening.

In a story published by TheWrap this past September, movie theater industry insiders said that any reopening of the Cinerama Dome or the adjacent multiplex would likely require a costly refurbishment not only of the theater’s auditoriums and sound systems, but also its concessions stands, escalators, fire alarms and other structural requirements to meet safety codes.

One film executive also told TheWrap that the Cinerama Dome’s projection room is not properly aligned to display films in 70mm, a format which has become popular with cinephiles thanks to movies like “The Hateful Eight,” “Oppenheimer,” “The Brutalist,” “Sinners” and the upcoming “The Odyssey” and “Dune: Part Three.”

While some films were still screened in the Dome in 70mm despite the misalignment, the executive said at least one prominent filmmaker opted to screen a 70mm print of their film in one of the Arclight Hollywood’s multiplex auditoriums instead of the Dome. Though it is not necessary for the Dome to reopen, aligning the projector with the screen would require a lengthy and costly overhaul of the Dome’s interior, made more difficult by the building’s official designation as a Los Angeles historical landmark.

TheWrap has reached out to Decurion for comment.

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