ArcLight Hollywood Lost Supremacy Even Before the Pandemic Shut It Down for Good

The demise of ArcLight Cinemas and its flagship Hollywood location has been met with mourning by dozens of filmmakers that had flocked to the Cinerama Dome for decades. But even before the pandemic that shuttered the premium theater chain permanently, there were already signs that the Arclight Hollywood’s reign as Los Angeles’ top theater was coming to an end. Analysts and distribution execs tell TheWrap that over the past three years, Arclight Hollywood was seeing stiffer competition from nearby cinemas in the L.A. basin, most notably the AMC Century City theater located seven miles southwest. And while the ArcLight Hollywood benefited for years with exclusive dibs on Oscar contenders along with one or two prime screens in New York City, many specialty film distributors are considering moving away from the four-screen, Los Angeles/New York platform release strategy now that the pandemic has hastened the shortening