Have you ever wondered what it is like to run an art-house theater chain in the film capital of the world? Here’s our conversation with Greg Laemmle, the President of Laemmle Theaters, a family owned business that shows art, international, and independent films in Los Angeles.
Great to meet you Greg! How did you get into film distribution?
I went off to college at Berkeley to study Marine Biology, which is not best suited for the film business, but at the time there was still a thriving repertory film circuit with three or four theaters in town and film societies. My father gave me a pass to the UC Theater, operated by Landmark, and I figured that if I could get my studying done during the course of the day that would leave me free in the evening to see movies. I caught up on a lot of movies and realized how much I loved film. I still have that degree in marine biology, but shortly after that I realized that I would be moving in the direction of the family business.
Was your father, Robert Laemmle running the business when you were deciding?
Yeah, my dad was running it at the time whilst my grandparents were still alive. I was doing a few other jobs coming out of college but my grandmother got upset and pulled me into the theaters.
What do you like most about the job. It sounds like you’re doing everything, including picking the movies and managing the distributor relationships?
It’s kind of how we’ve always done it. It’s probably not the smartest thing, but I really love seeing the movies, working with the distributors, figuring out what to play and where to play it, and how best to get an audience to see it. Growing up working in the theaters, you see first-hand the impact that movies have on the faces of people coming out of the auditorium. So that idea of sharing and exposing people to something is really quite powerful and enjoyable.
Also, as we’ve gotten into the business, I’ve enjoyed working with communities to develop arts and entertainment districts. Asking how a movie theater fits into that world? How does Los Angeles evolve as a community? Figuring out where people are going, spending their leisure time, and how they are getting around. All those kinds of things. Running a Theater chain is a full-fledged opportunity to engage in urban development and the role the arts play in it.
A few of your theaters, such as the Monica Center and Royal are very close to other theaters. Do you think it is better to have more theaters in your area?
It’s a fine line. Sometimes you want some other theaters to help create the movie-going audience. The complexes we are building are not that large or historically built so at some level you know you’re going to be sharing the audience. You have to ask how many screens does it take to provide what the community wants. For example, we’re the only theater in Claremont. With only 5 screens there, it was difficult as there was always someone who was asking why we weren’t playing films x, y, or z. So that indicates a need for a higher number of screens in Claremont. In the current environment where there is a reduced number of commercial films coming from the major studios post-pandemic, you see the big movie theater chains such as AMC playing more art films, which becomes more competition for us. I don’t know if there is a magic number. If there are 12 screens in the community, it depends on how they’re programmed. In those kinds of situations, if that theater is ignoring the art films that are out there, then there is a need for something more.
The Laemmle Theaters are synonymous with art-house, independent, and international films. Why was this lane picked and why have you stuck with it?
It was a niche that was available. If you were not able to play commercial films, which may have been more lucrative, you were looking around to see what you could play. From a business standpoint, if you have an opportunity to play art and foreign films that other people are not playing, or play them in an area where they’re not being seen, or just by making a commitment to playing those types of films and creating an audience for them that becomes a business decision. Did that decision happen to mesh with a preference for those type of films; absolutely. I don’t dislike Hollywood films, but there is a world of cinema out there and being able to bring it all to Los Angeles became good business for us.
Well, it goes up and down. There are a lot of factors. It’s not that audiences have soured on these types of films, but we’re dealing with certain challenges coming out of the pandemic that are to a certain degree outside of our control.
I thought you navigated the pandemic well. You were quick to set up the Virtual Cinema which allowed an audience to continue to watch international and independent films. What was your perspective on the Virtual Cinema? Did it help or was the benefit very minute?
Very minute due to complicated rights issues in streaming. As much as distributors wanted to support our activity, they weren’t able to or there were competitive pressures. The Virtual Cinema was an opportunity to stay engaged with our customers about film but the numbers weren’t significant. In the post-pandemic period, that fell off even more and we were faced with a challenge to get people back in the movie theaters, so we decided to stop taking the content online. It’s not that it was losing a ton of money, but it wasn’t making much money and was taking energy away from what we really wanted to do which was getting people back in the movie theaters.
There are still challenges right now. Infection numbers are currently climbing and there is an audience that is very scared of getting sick. We’re seeing our audience change as a result. The older audience that used to be the most reliable for supporting art-house cinema, is still not back and may not come back. This is impacting the kind of films distributors are wanting to support theatrically. This will have an impact on the kind of films that get made.
Local film criticism has also declined. We’re sympathetic as local papers have their challenges too but it has severely impacted the ability of people to find out through independent sources what is playing and worth seeing. Obviously you can go on our website to see what we’re playing, but if you’re not the type of person that goes to websites, how are you getting that information about what is playing. It used to be that when you would open the Friday paper, you could see half a dozen or more film reviews of everything opening that day in Los Angeles and you could read about films you hadn’t heard about and potentially decide to watch that movie. When you are searching for reviews on Rotten Tomatoes or other sites, the assumption is that you are searching because you know what you are looking for and the process of discovering smaller films is made more difficult.
Apps like Letterboxd help but require a degree of technical comfort to understand that if you rate the films you’ve seen, the algorithm will start suggesting other films that you might like, and you will find out about that small Romanian film because you liked another Romanian film. A certain audience understands this and another does not. We need to build connections with all types of audiences and it’s taking longer than we would like. It’s partly because we’re still not in an environment where we’re entirely done with the shocks of everything.
Is the younger audience back to pre-pandemic levels?
It has recovered quicker and arguably accelerated. You can see that in the numbers – some theaters are doing as much business or more than they did before due to a younger demographic and the films we program there. The numbers are just super strong. Poor Things doing as much business as The Favorite is a testament of this. The younger audience is back and stronger than ever and hungrier to see these types of films.
Does this impact how you program your theaters?
It impacts distributor decisions about which films to acquire, how to support those films, and which way to release them. If distributors are not acquiring or supporting those films in the way that they’re used to it has a downstream impact. Print advertising has declined. I don’t want to sound like a Luddite or a person who’s not moving on, but there were lots of audiences that did respond to print advertising because they were not necessarily being reached in any other way and you could argue that this audience no longer knows what is playing or they’re not being informed through that manner that was most familiar to them. How do you reach that audience? Can you reach that audience? What are the other means of doing that? It’s not that this audience is totally gone, but the numbers clearly show that it’s only back to a certain degree.
How do you find all of the films that you program at the Laemmle Theaters?
It is generally distributors bringing films to us. I wish I had time to do attend more film festivals, but I try to pay attention to what is playing at the major festivals and networking with festival programmers and exhibitors. We tend to be very open to working directly with producers, but it does mean that they have to come to us and present something and we’ll figure out how to play it. If your film is not acquired by a distributor, it’s not over, but you have to take your film hat off and put your film seller hat on and do that yourself
The distributors that have already acquired the films use the festivals to build word of mouth. Even with the Palme d’Or, Sean Baker’s Anora will not have the built in awareness across the general population that Deadpool & Wolverine has, and certainly can’t afford to spend as much, so savvy distributors will use every step they can to build awareness, word of mouth, so that when the film is finally put to commercial release, it has a leg up towards finding an audience and getting people to see it. They will use things that come up during the course of the release to their advantage, such as reviews, nominations, and top 10 lists, to continue to build awareness. When successfully managed, you get films like Anatomy of a Fall playing in movie theaters for up to six months.
The quality of the film ultimately speaks to an audience, but getting an audience in to see the films is important and the marketing helps.
What do you like least about running Laemmle Theaters?
It’s very challenging in this environment, but nothing makes me want to quit. I love what I’m doing. It’s just being able to find a way from challenge to success. Sometimes that’s more difficult than other times. But I ultimately believe in what we do and that it’s of value to the public, and the general public generally expresses their affection that way in terms of support and attendance. When you’re in an environment that’s in flux, it’s not always possible to pivot as quickly as you want, you have leases, facilities and other things to manage. In many cases it requires an amazing degree of patience to see things turn around. There’s not a lot that I don’t like. Some things are harder than others, that’s all.
Thanks so much for your time! One last question. I know from Only in Theaters that you’ve moved to Seattle. How is the Cinema culture in Seattle?
There’s a terrific art house scene in Seattle where I’m now living. The Seattle International Film Festival runs year round programming at four locations: the Cinerama theater, the uptown, the civic center and the Egyptian. You also have the grand illusion, the northwest film forum so there is a number of niche art house operators in the area that do terrific stuff, so I’m very fortunate to be able to access that.
For more insight into the operation of Laemmle Theaters, watch Raphael Sbarge’s documentary Only in Theaters. You can also catch Inside the Arthouse a new video podcast from Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge highlighting new releases from August 28th.
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