Yes, movie theater enthusiasts of Los Angeles – you did in fact recognize Gardena Cinema in the Super Bowl commercial for “The Adventures of Cliff Booth.”
It was the first trailer for the anticipated spin-off of Quentin Tarantino’s most recent film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” Netflix Inc. picked up the script last year and brought in David Fincher to helm the project, which is bringing back Brad Pitt as the titular character.
Fans of the historic single-screen theater in suburban Gardena immediately picked up on its appearance in the trailer. The Gardena Cinema account on Instagram reshared many of the enthusiastic posts celebrating the discovery on Sunday.
Judy Kim, the purveyor of the theater which her late mother Nancy developed into a local institution, hailed the moment with enthusiasm and was excited to discuss her experience working with Fincher’s team – which shared some location personnel with Tarantino’s production for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
“His team is pretty impressive,” she said in a phone call. “They do a lot of period pieces, and they really make sure the details match the time period they’re filming in.”
With Gardena Cinema retaining many of the features from its 1946 construction, that squares well with the timing of the upcoming film. Fincher’s team spent four weeks prepping and shooting at Gardena Cinema – which Tarantino’s team apparently scouted when he was first attached to the project – in July and August. As part of the production, the theater’s floor was painted yellow and remains so today as another artifact of on-site location filming. The theater also retains the wood paneling installed in 2018 for the filming of Netflix’s “Dolemite is my Name.”
Kim noted that, as a Netflix production, that it was “good money” for the independent cinema. It comes as Kim is attempting to raise about $15 million to fund a series of capital improvements to the building and transfer its ownership to a nonprofit which will preserve and operate it.
“They’re very generous and reasonable,” Kim said of Netflix. “And for me, I try really hard to be production-friendly.”
