Grassroots Cinerama Dome campaign on pause following incident at theater
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A five-year grassroots campaign to spur the reopening of one of the crown jewels of moviegoing in Los Angeles is on indefinite pause following an incident at the theater Friday night.Ben Steinberg, a 26-year-old film student at Cal State Northridge, has long been a vocal and active proponent of reopening Hollywood’s Cinerama Dome, which has been closed since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.A Change.org petition started by Steinberg has more than 31,000 signatures asking the Decurion Corp., longtime owners of the venue, to reopen or lease the property to someone else who would.
Across social media platforms, Steinberg has nearly 12,000 followers.From across Sunset Boulevard on Friday night, Steinberg — along with a projectionist and a privately-hired security guard — had been projecting images of two members of the Forman family, who own Decurion, onto the front of the Dome along with the slogan “Mr.Forman REOPEN THE DOME!” After about two-and-a-half hours, LAPD officers arrived in response to a radio call received around 9 p.m.“They came to us and they informed us that the property owner considers it harassment and that it’s an escalation and that we have to shut down,” said Steinberg in an interview with The Times on Sunday afternoon.
“So we just shut down immediately.We didn’t contest anything.”There was no immediate response to a request for comment from Decurion on Monday.
The LAPD confirmed details of the incident.Movies Hollywood’s iconic movie theaters, closed? Filmmakers, including Rian Johnson and Jon M.
Chu, share heartfelt memories of the ArcLight Cinemas.The Cinerama Dome originally opened in 1963 with its white tiled design and distinctive marquee.In April 2021 it was announced by Pacific Theatres that the venue would not be reopening.
That brief statement regarding the closure of Pacific Theatres and ArcLight Cinemas, which opera...