The iconic Cinerama Dome is returning. Sony Pictures and Alamo Drafthouse will restore and reopen the Hollywood landmark by early 2028. Here’s what to expect.
For five years, the Cinerama Dome sat dark on Sunset Boulevard while Angelenos signed petitions, staged demonstrations, and quietly refused to believe it was really gone. The geodesic concrete shell — a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument that has presided over Hollywood premieres since William R. Forman built it in 1963 — turned out to be more durable than the bankruptcy that tried to erase it. Sony Pictures Entertainment announced this week that it will restore and reopen the Dome, with its subsidiary Alamo Drafthouse Cinema operating the venue. Renovations begin next month. The doors reopen in early 2028. After five years of holding their breath, the city’s moviegoing community can finally exhale.
The Deal, Plainly
Sony, which acquired Alamo Drafthouse in 2024, will operate the Dome under a lease from Decurion Corporation’s Robertson Property Group, which retains ownership of the real estate. Alongside the Dome, Sony will reopen the adjacent 14-screen complex — formerly ArcLight Cinemas — as a full Alamo Drafthouse location, complete with the chain’s signature dine-in service, 35mm capabilities, and multiple premium format screens including 70mm auditoriums.
The Dome itself will not go dine-in. Sony has been explicit about that. The restoration is meant to honor what made it singular: the 86-foot-wide panoramic curved screen, traditional concession experience, and a programming calendar built around repertory screenings, filmmaker series, premieres, and special events. The “Cinerama” name and exterior branding stay intact. Whatever Alamo Drafthouse does next door, the Dome gets to remain itself.
That’s a meaningful distinction — the dine-in format that saved Alamo Drafthouse as a chain would have been a strange fit for a monument that made its name on pure immersion.
Why This Closure Stung the Way It Did
Pacific Theatres, which operated the Dome and its sister brand ArcLight Cinemas, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2021 after the prolonged COVID closures made revival untenable. Unlike theater chains that restructured, Pacific liquidated entirely — no comeback plan, no buyer lined up, just a locked door and a marquee that went dark and stayed dark.
For a venue that had been one of the city’s highest-grossing multiplexes and a destination for marquee events — including a special preview of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — the silence landed hard.
Los Angeles has no shortage of movie theaters. What it had in the Dome was something that couldn’t be replicated by a multiplex in a strip mall or a luxury recliner chain in a suburban complex: a room purpose-built for cinema, with the physical architecture to prove it. The community that showed up to fight for it — the petitions, the demonstrations — understood that distinction intuitively.
Most cities would have turned it into condos by year two. Los Angeles held out, and it turns out the city was negotiating in its sleep.
Sony’s Bet and What It Says About the Industry
“Hot damn! We’re bringing the Dome back, baby.”
Tom Rothman, Sony’s Motion Picture Group Chairman and CEO, was characteristically direct: “Hot damn! We’re bringing the Dome back, baby. We believe in moviegoing down to our soul, and no venue on earth stands more for that than the one-of-a-kind Dome. I am deeply proud that Sony is investing in Hollywood, literally.”
That last word — literally — is doing some work. A major studio buying a theater chain and then committing to restore a landmark venue is a specific argument about where the industry is headed. Sony is placing a bet that theatrical exhibition isn’t a category in managed decline but a category worth owning, programming, and building around. Alamo Drafthouse, even after its own Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2021, is the vehicle for that bet: a chain with a genuine culture, a no-talking/no-texting policy that its regulars treat as a non-negotiable, and enough brand equity to anchor a West Coast flagship.
Michael Kustermann, CEO of Alamo Drafthouse and Head of Sony Pictures Experiences, called the Hollywood complex “our new West Coast flagship” — language that positions the Dome not as a nostalgia project but as the top of a national exhibition strategy.
Ravi Ahuja, Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, framed it in terms the industry will quote for years: “There is no moviegoing destination anywhere in the world that commands the affection, history, and cultural significance of the Cinerama Dome.”
He’s not wrong, and he knows it, and so does every other studio executive who has been watching this building sit empty for half a decade wondering who was going to move first.
What 2028 Looks Like
Renovations begin next month and run through early 2028. The restoration will preserve the Dome’s curved screen presentation, the landmark’s exterior, and the traditional concession experience that premium dine-in formats have spent a decade trying to replace. The adjacent 14-screen Alamo Drafthouse will offer everything the Dome won’t: food service, premium formats, 35mm and 70mm projection for archival programming.
Together, the two venues make a complete destination — a place where you can catch a repertory 70mm print in the Dome one night and order a burger and a cocktail while watching something new in the multiplex the next. That combination, if Sony programs it with the same intentionality it’s promised, would be the most compelling theatrical destination on the West Coast.
For now, the Dome is still dark. But for the first time since 2020, it’s dark on a timeline.
FAQ
Q: When will the Cinerama Dome reopen?
A: Sony has announced a reopening target of early 2028. Restorative renovations are set to begin next month and are expected to run through that date. The adjacent 14-screen complex will reopen as an Alamo Drafthouse Cinema on the same timeline.
Q: Will the Cinerama Dome have Alamo Drafthouse’s dine-in food service?
A: No. Sony has confirmed the Dome will not operate as a dine-in theater. The restoration is focused on preserving the venue’s traditional concession experience and immersive large-format presentation. Dine-in service will be available at the adjoining Alamo Drafthouse multiplex.
Q: Who owns the Cinerama Dome now?
A: Decurion Corporation’s Robertson Property Group retains ownership of the real estate. Sony Pictures Entertainment will operate the theaters under a lease agreement, with Alamo Drafthouse — a Sony subsidiary — serving as the operator.
The Return of the Movie Destination
The Cinerama Dome reopening isn’t just good news for Los Angeles film culture — it’s a proof of concept for what theatrical exhibition can still be when a major studio decides to treat it as a destination rather than a distribution channel. Whether Sony can program the Dome with the rigor the space deserves will be the real test. The building earned its audience over 60 years. Now Sony has to earn it too. Get your 2028 calendars ready.
