ArcLight Cinemas & Pacific Theatres To Permanently Shut Down

The theater chain ArcLight Cinemas and its parent company Pacific Theatres have announced that they will be permanently shutting down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Pacific Theatres was first set up in 1946 while the ArcLight Cinemas chain was first set up on March 22, 2002, when the ArcLight Hollywood theater opened in Los Angeles. Both theater chains were forced to close in March 2020 when the pandemic forced nearly everyone into quarantine.

Once the Decurion Corporation, which owned both Pacific Theatres and ArcLight Cinemas went out of business, the popular theater chains had little chance of staying open. This was not helped by the fact that several blockbuster features have been released to streaming services like HBO Max and Netflix instead of movie theaters. Most, if not all movie, theaters under ArcLight Cinemas and Pacific Theatres have been forced to be permanently close, including the iconic Cinerama Dome theater, which had been a staple of Hollywood, California since 1963. The location itself was even made a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1998, making this an even deeper blow for moviegoers and theaters in general.

Many fans expressed their disappointment with the closure of ArcLight Cinemas and Pacific Theatres on social media. Fans of the theater chains on Twitter have even started petitions to keep ArcLight Cinemas and Pacific Theaters open, with them even suggesting that certain wealthy celebrities should make large donations to the areas to keep them going.