Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema Set to Reopen June 1
The beloved revival movie house New Beverly Cinema, owned by Quentin Tarantino since 2007, has set a reopening date of June 1. The theater, which is located on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles, made the announcement via social media over the weekend. See below.
The theater, which seats 228 people, first opened in 1929. It was long subsidized by Tarantino before he took over in 2007 to keep the location open and screening classic movies on real celluloid film prints. (Tarantino became the new landlord when the previous owner, Sherman Torgan, died.) Since 2014 Tarantino also served as head curator of the venue, mandating that only 16mm and 35mm prints be shown, and chucking out the digital project brought in by Torgan’s son Michael. Now, the theater regularly screens double bills of Tarantino films as well as many of his favorite classics.
The New Beverly had been closed since the spring of last year due to the pandemic, but the venue is no stranger to long-term closures: It was shuttered for a year due to renovations before re-emerging in 2018.
When Tarantino became head programmer in 2014, he called for a raft of updates including “rebuilding the sound and picture heads, adding workspace and new controls to the projection booth, scrapping the periscope projection system and lowering the portholes in the booth to give the picture a straight, unfiltered journey to the screen.” A documentary on the theater, “Out of Print,” was completed that same year by former manager Julia Marchese, who said she was forced to quit when Tarantino decided to expand his role.
“I want the New Beverly to be a bastion for 35 millimeter films,” he told the LA Weekly. “I want it to stand for something. When you see a film on the New Beverly calendar, you don’t have to ask whether it’s going to be shown in DCP [Digital Cinema Projection] or in 35 millimeter. You know it’s playing in 35 because it’s the New Beverly.”
The space at 7165 Beverly Boulevard has variously served as a exhibition space for vaudevillians and pornographers, as well a candy factory and nightclub.
More info coming soon… pic.twitter.com/cOxmctmwSO
— New Beverly Cinema (@newbeverly) May 1, 2021
