Century Plaza Cinemas
2040 Avenue of the Stars,
Los Angeles,
CA
90067
2040 Avenue of the Stars,
Los Angeles,
CA
90067
17 people
favorited this theater
A standard 1970’s design (which includes a lot of curtains), the theater’s main house was very similar to the Loews Astor in NYC, but not as wide, but just as long. The main house seated around 1,400 people and the second house seated around 800 people, when it opened.
In the mid-1980’s, Cineplex took over the Century Plaza Cinemas and remodeled the theater. Unfortunately, this work included a conversion of the main screen into three smaller, separate screens.
By comparision, if one were to cut the Astor’s rear seats from the main seating area, one would create screens 3 and 4 at the Century Plaza. As a result, the theater’s original second screen became considered its main screen.
This theater was often used as a preferred location for private trade screenings, a common occurence in Los Angeles. It also hosted the occassional premiere.
It closed on July 27, 2003 and was demolished the following year.
Contributed by
William Gabel, Bradley Erickson
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Recent comments (view all 81 comments)
Agreed. I only saw the Century Plaza as a Cineplex Odeon quad, but the National will always be my favorite LA theatre for presentation.
Zip code 90067
I saw some films at the other theater in Century City but not this one. Not exactly an A-list destination for Saturday nights.
I guess the akas on this one were never updated. There were some comments on this issue back in October 2007.
This was one of the best theatres ever! beautiful screens sound, overall quality a real cut above. And it felt fancy. I saw The Matrix there, Born On The Fourth Of July—with Ron Kovic, who the movie was based on actually there. Saw The Green Mile, Apocalypse Now Redux. This really was one of the best theatres, especially the main one.
This was one of the best theatres in L.A. when PLITT operated it. The large auditorium was fantastic. I went to the first showing of Jaws opening day June 20, 1975 at this theatre. Like the AVCO Westwood, it was ruined when they cut up the main theatre into smaller.
Early in 2002 I got a postcard from the company that owned the ABC Entertainment Center (which included this theatre), announcing they were going to tear everything down and replace it with a new office building and a park. Whenever I went there after that, it was more special because of knowing that it might be the last time. And one day, sadly, it was.
I just watched Oh God Book 2 and they go to this theater, but only the outside. No interior shots, but there is an exterior shot of “ABC Entertainment Center.”
Described in this 1972 trade article: Boxoffice
I saw Star Wars, 2001, Sound of Music, and I believe The Black Hole in 70mm on the large/main 1,400 seat screen here. Man, if I’d only know what that truly meant at the time!