Joy in Hollywood as historic Cinerama dome to reopen: ‘People still want to go to the movies’

Sony Pictures in July announced that the celebrated theater, built in 1963 and shuttered during Covid, will reopen in 2028

Drive down Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles , along the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and you’ll see a movie theater straight out of The Jetsons.

Built in 1963, the Cinerama dome is instantly memorable: a white, geodesic construction that looks like a giant golf ball cut in half and plopped down in the middle of the city.

In recent years, however, it’s served as a sad memorial to better times in the movie business – the cinema closed in 2020, with no certainty that it would ever open again.

This summer, things finally changed. Sony Pictures in July announced that the Cinerama dome would reopen in 2028, thanks to a new agreement with its owners. It’s great news for cinephiles, as well as fans of LA architecture; the building was designated as a historic cultural monument in 1998 .

The closed Cinerama dome “has become a symbol of everything that went wrong during Covid”, says Adrian Scott Fine, president and CEO of the LA Conservancy. “To have this come back is really, really good news,” he adds, saying it’s perhaps an indicator that LA is “getting back to where it once was”.

The reopening comes amid more good news for the movie industry: between blockbuster successes like The Odyssey and tiny-budget hits like Obsession, cinemas are experiencing their biggest year since before the pandemic. Is the Cinerama dome’s reopening a hopeful sign of the times?

The story of the cinema’s fall and rise tracks the story of filmgoing in recent years. Like movie theaters across the US, the dome closed as Covid took hold; unlike many of those theaters, it never reopened. That felt like a tragedy to many Angelenos, who inundated the conservancy with calls asking about its future.

The original films presented in the Cinerama widescreen format featured three projectors and a curved screen for immersive viewing. Many cinemas were adapted to show the movies, but the dome, constructed of 316 concrete hexagons and pentagons , was purpose-built for the Cinerama experience. “There’s nothing else like it in the world,” says Fine. “Every Angeleno loves this building.”

Among them is Benjamin Steinberg, a 26-year-old film-maker and activist who led the push for reopening. “I think it’s one of the most important movie theaters in the world, and to have it sitting abandoned for over literally five years and zero contact from the owners was extremely frustrating,” Steinberg says.

He created a petition to save the dome “within five minutes” of hearing the closure would be permanent. The petition, directed at the cinema’s owners, the Decurion Corporation, quickly got tens of thousands of signatures – to little effect. Steinberg eventually opted for more aggressive tactics, including rallies outside the theater and, finally, projecting pictures of the owners on to the side of the dome in April. “That went extremely viral,” he said. It also resulted in a police response .

“Hot damn! We’re bringing the Dome back, baby,” said Tom Rothman, the CEO of Sony Pictures, in a statement on 22 July .