Skydance-owned Paramount Pictures has taken over the lease for the Bay Theater in Pacific Palisades and intends to reopen the cinema, which has been closed since the January 2025 Palisades fire last year.
Paramount plans to upgrade the theater with state-of-the-art projection systems and in-seat food and drink service, Rick Caruso, whose company owns the Palisades Village shopping center where the Bay Theater is located, said in an interview. Caruso is founder and executive chairman of the real estate firm Caruso.
Paramount plans to show first-run theatrical movies from all studios. The theater will be operated by The Lot, a La Jolla-based luxury dine-in theater chain with four locations in California. The theater is expected to reopen later this year, Caruso said.
“The comeback of this movie theater is a great signal for all of L.A.,” he said. “Los Angeles is resilient, and we’re going to show the country that Los Angeles can bounce back from a terrible, terrible disaster, and the comeback is going to be much greater than the setback.”
Palisades Village reopened in August after more than $100 million in renovations, including major infrastructure work. The upscale outdoor mall survived the Palisades fire, but needed refurbishment to eliminate any potential contaminants from the blaze.
Caruso declined to share terms of Paramount’s lease agreement, saying only that it was long-term. Paramount declined to comment on the size of its investment in the theater.
Caruso said he brought up the Bay Theater over lunch last year with David Ellison, chief executive of Skydance, who was then working to acquire Paramount. The two were discussing that deal and Ellison’s belief in the importance of the movie theater business to the industry.
“Together with Caruso, we are proud to help bring the Bay back to life as a place for the Pacific Palisades community to gather around the shared experience of cinema,” Ellison said in a statement. “This theater has always meant more than movies alone — it’s woven into the fabric of this neighborhood, and helping restore it is a privilege.”
The Bay Theater was previously leased by Netflix, which took it over in 2021. The company used the theater to host special events, screen classic films and showcase its own original theatrical movies.
Caruso described Netflix and company Chief Executive Ted Sarandos as “incredible stewards” of the theater, adding that Sarandos was “very much a gentleman” in having the discussion about Paramount stepping in at the theater.
The Bay Theater announcement comes just about a week after Paramount completed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The newly combined company, which took the name Skydance after the deal closed, must release at least 30 films a year as part of a settlement agreement with 12 state attorneys general over antitrust claims.
Ellison has long extolled his love of movies and appeared at the CinemaCon movie theater owners convention earlier this year to reiterate his commitment to theatrical releases.
Studios were barred from owning theaters for decades under the Paramount consent decrees, which a federal judge terminated in 2020. Netflix has since operated the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and the Paris Theater in New York.
“Through our curated offering and dedicated hospitality, we look forward to welcoming the Pacific Palisades community back to the movies, the way they were intended to be shared,” Adolfo Fastlicht, founder and chief executive of The Lot, said in a statement.
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