IPic spent two years and millions of dollars transforming the four screen Avco into a six auditorium complex. In December of 2011 however, the cinema was shuttered after the circuit couldn’t come to an agreement on a lease renewal with the Avco Center Corp. AMC took over operations of the multiplex in 2002 after GCC filed for bankruptcy. In 1993 GCC broke the hearts of many Angeleno cinephiles when they split the main auditorium into two smaller houses, turning the cinema into a four-plex. Avco Center Cinemas playing “Star Wars” circa 1977 Abrams, who directed last year’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, has such fond memories of seeing “Star Wars” at the theatre when he was 11-years-old, that he gave “Episode VII” the working title of “AVCO” when he began filming the sequel. It notably opened all of the original “Star Wars” films on 70mm and was the first theatre in L.A.
The theatre built a solid reputation as one of the better cinemas in Los Angeles. The original theater occupying the location on Wilshire Boulevard was opened on by General Cinema (GCC) as the Avco Center Cinemas, a three screen complex whose main auditorium had roughly 1,100 seats. The iPic Westwood opened in May of 2014 as the company’s 10th location. When it comes to a “high-end” or “luxury” cinema, iPic has chosen to set the bar extremely high, at least at their Westwood venue. To be sure, there was no difficulty in getting the scoop on the iPic Westwood, however we walked away from our visit realizing our preconceived notions of the theatre were dead wrong. After all, we thought, how hard could it be to cover some upscale cinema in a major modern metropolis? In this day-and-age, such venues are being opened at a breakneck pace by the likes of Arclight Cinemas, Cinépolis and Landmark Theatres. With our publication deadline looming, and June quickly coming to an end, we decided to stick with the iPic Westwood as our Cinema of the Month and cover it the old-fashioned way actually show up in person to do a little fact gathering. Like Muvico, before the chain was sold to Carmike Cinemas in 2013, iPic Entertainment is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. After a public falling out with his investors in 2005, Hashemi parted ways with Muvico and immediately launched iPic Entertainment with the intention of opening high-end, luxurious cinemas. By 2006 the chain had grown into a noteworthy circuit with 13 locations in the United States pulling in $120 million in revenue. Hashemi started out with a single Southern Florida theatre in 1984 and in 1988 began building Muvico Theatres. Maybe he has been burned by other media outlets during his more than 30 year career as a cinema operator, and thus assumed CJ might do the same. Rather than the informative and relatively promotional pieces our Cinema of the Month posts tend to be, we were told Hashemi was afraid he might be giving away trade secrets to his competitors. Having not received a response after some time, we were eventually informed that Hamid Hashemi, the founder and CEO of iPic Entertainment, wasn’t fond of trade publications like Celluloid Junkie. We also contacted iPic’s public relations agency multiple times and were assured that details about the iPic Westwood would be forthcoming.
When we set out to cover the iPic Westwood, an upscale cinema in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, we reached out to the theatre chain directly, as is appropriate in such instances. In completing this profile of the iPic Westwood as our Cinema of the Month for June, we were reminded just how important it is to avoid one’s own preconceptions.
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