The Landmark Pico at the former Westside Pavilion will be closing this month, according to a Landmark Theatres announcement.
The arthouse movie theater, which has been serving Los Angeles moviegoers for 15 years, lived up to its name as an early example of a luxury theater offering beer and wine, gourmet pizza and sumptous seating.
The theater, located at 10850 Pico Blvd., will shutter at the end of May when its lease expires.
“For months, we’ve worked to extend our tenancy of The Landmark Pico but have been unable to reach terms,” Landmark Theatres’ President Kevin Holloway said in a statement. “We send our deepest appreciation to the Pico staff, guests, and the filmmaking community for their support over the years.”
According to the company, the Landmark Pico’s closure does not indicate problems with the organization, which was acquired in 2018 by the Cohen Media Group. Landmark Theatres, which has 35 theaters with a total of 195 screens, recently made two acquisitions and is actively negotiating several more leases. On L.A.’s Westside, Landmark will continue to operate the soon-to-be-renovated Nuart Theatre on Santa Monica Boulevard and the recently renovated Landmark Westwood.
“We’re exploring opportunities to expand our Los Angeles footprint, which we hope to be able to share more on soon,” Holloway said.
The Landmark Pico was originally housed elsewhere in the Westside Pavilion mall before relocating to its street address. Over the years, the arthouse screened fare from independent and auteur filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch and Wes Anderson. In addition to its specialty cinema, the Landmark Pico had been the site of numerous Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences screenings as well as Q&A panel presentations.
The closure comes at a time when specialty cinema is staging a mini-comeback with the current breakout success of A24’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and the recent release of Lionsgate’s “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.”
It also follows a string of premium luxury movie theaters that went dark during the pandemic. Last year saw the ArcLight and Cinerama Dome in Hollywood go out of business.
In addition, Laemmle Theatres has sold the building housing Laemmle’s Playhouse 7 in Pasadena and is operating under a leaseback arrangement while it seeks another location for the theater. Greg Laemmle, president of the arthouse movie theatre chain, recently told the Hollywood Reporter that his company will be closing several theaters this year.
The Landmark Pico had continued operation even as the Westside Pavilion shopping mall closed in 2019 to make way for a repurposing of the building into office space for single tenant Google. The Westside Pavilion building is currently being overhauled by landlord and developer Hudson Pacific Properties in a joint venture with the mall’s previous owner, Macerich. The transformation of the Westside Pavilion building into 584,000 square feet of offices with high ceilings and natural light designed by Gensler will be rebranded One Westside and has a price tag of $475 million.
