The stars came out to buy the historic Village Theatre in Westwood Village, and American Cinematheque expects the renovated theater to be rolling by 2027.
The L.A. nonprofit is the programming partner for the Village Directors Circle, the group of more than 30 high-profile filmmakers that acquired the Los Angeles landmark last year for $15.5 million, Westside Today reported.
The full-building renovation at 961 Broxton Avenue will result in a multi-use screening and event venue with more than 1,000 theater seats.
Designs call for renovations to the auditorium, lobby and public spaces, bringing the 1931-built facility into the 21st century.
American Cinematheque will handle day-to-day operations and programming at the reopened theater. The nonprofit will work in tandem with the Village Directors Circle to plan film screenings, festivals, premieres and special events.
Once renovations are finished and the venue opens to the public, it will support award-season programs, retrospectives, filmmaker tributes, new-release engagements and a slate of long-running American Cinematheque series, like Beyond Fest, Bleak Week, This Is Not a Fiction and Ultra Cinematheque 70. New festivals are also planned to be added to the schedule.
It will all serve as a continuation of the theater’s nearly 100-year history of hosting red-carpet premieres. The lobby will have space for concessions, retail kiosks, receptions for screenings and premieres, as well as artifact exhibits with items from Village Directors Circle members’ personal collections.
The Village Directors Circle is led by award-winning director Jason Reitman and counts filmmakers and actors like Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Guillermo del Toro, Judd Apatow and Bradley Cooper among its ranks.
American Cinematheque presents screenings, festivals, retrospectives and other programming at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, the Los Feliz 3 Theatre in Los Feliz and Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.
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