Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Looking for background on Pacific Theaters Corp.

This is topic Looking for background on Pacific Theaters Corp. in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Gary Davidson (Member # 2198) on 12-22-2005, 05:49 PM:

History, news, etc. I'm not finding a whole lot on Google.

Gary

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 12-22-2005, 06:16 PM:

You may not find a whole lot since Pacific is privately held. Without public stock holders to answer to, they don't have to make very much info public. Try looking at Decurion Corp, the holding company the Forman family uses in relation to Pacific.

Posted by David Kilderry (Member # 142) on 12-23-2005, 12:43 AM:

Hi Gary, I also have searched for more information on Pacific over the years. Back in the 1980's I did corresspond with one of their vice-presidents and he was helpful with some information.

You will find some more information on Sal Garcia's excellent Southern California Drive-ins website

http://www.socaldriveins.com/

Here there are various histories of many Pacific Drive-ins with some original Pacific photos too. From the opening dates you can see how they expanded throughout Los Angeles and surrounds.

They started as a drive-in operator after WW2 and rapidly expanded in Southern California. Owned by the Foreman family they are sometimes known as Foreman Pacific. They built and bought out other drive-ins and became one of the worlds largest drive-in theatre operators. They built hartop theatres too and started to expand in Hawaii. They owned at least one resort in Hawaii and in the 1960's aquired Cinerama. For some time they controlled a circuit of walk ins in the East.

Originally they planned a large expansion of 3 strip and single lens Cinerama locations, but for many reasons this stalled. I understand they still own the Cinerama company today. Their old Cinerama Dome on Sunset (now Arclight) was to be the first of many similar locations I understand.

Their drive-ins were well known for their screen murals which elaboratly reflected the local community. They boasted large neon and were common in Los Angeles until the 1980's. The sale of the drive-ins helped pay for their multiplex expansion. The Winnetka location sits on the old Winnetka drive-in that was one of their flagship locations. Perhaps the peak of the drive-in era was reached when they constructed the massive Fountain Valley Drive-in. Although state of the art in everything drive-in, it still did not hold the amount of cars as the not-far-away Los Altos.

I would be interested to find out more too, let me know how you go.

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 12-23-2005, 02:25 PM:

The Forman family is also has some involvement with City Cinemas and Reading. Reading was in one market that a client was in...we built better cinemas in better locations for less money....they sold out of the market and started building in Australia [Smile]

Posted by Gary Davidson (Member # 2198) on 12-27-2005, 05:05 PM:

Thanks, guys...