The Bruin Is Keeping the Old Seats

When the Bruin Theatre reopens in Westwood, currently planned for as soon as October, the old seats are supposed to still be there. New operator Rui Pereira says his team will restore 35mm and 70mm film projection, upgrade the digital system, and leave the auditorium’s existing seating in place instead of installing recliners. After two years dark, the 1937 movie house is returning with a renovation plan that sounds almost suspiciously modest.

The Bruin and the theater across Broxton Avenue, now called the Directors Village, closed in July 2024 when their leases expired. A coalition led by filmmaker Jason Reitman had already purchased the larger Village, which is headed for a $25 million restoration and a planned 2027 reopening. The Bruin was left with an uncertain future until Pereira signed a lease in mid-July. According to theater historian Bill Counter, the two cinemas had operated under joint ownership for more than 80 years. The smaller Bruin will now have its own operator and bookers for the first time.

It is an unusually specific room. S. Charles Lee, the architect behind hundreds of theaters, designed the Bruin as a single-screen film house with all its seats on one floor. There is little stage space behind the screen because live performance was never the point. Outside, the curved facade and neon marquee wrap around the corner like a machine built to advertise whatever is playing tonight. The original interior even included stencils that glowed in the dark. They have since been painted over, which feels like an almost comically literal loss for a movie theater.

The Bruin is already a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, but landmark status has a narrow job. It brings major physical alterations and demolition under preservation review. It cannot make an owner operate a cinema or keep the box office staffed. The building demonstrated that gap for two years: the marquee remained in Westwood while the auditorium behind it sat empty. A new lease is doing work that designation alone could not.

Pereira’s choices make the building’s limitations useful. A single-screen theater cannot compete with a multiplex by offering fourteen movies at once. Its schedule, projection and atmosphere have to become the reason for making the trip. Traditional 35mm remains the standard film gauge most audiences recognize, while a 70mm release print is physically twice as wide and requires specialized equipment. Keeping both formats gives the Bruin access to repertory screenings, filmmaker events and the occasional new release whose audience cares intensely about how it is projected.

That audience is currently making a lot of noise. This summer, Glendale’s century-old Alex Theatre installed a 70mm system and became the country’s highest-grossing theater presenting Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey in that format. Sony and Alamo Drafthouse have also announced a restoration and 2028 reopening for the Cinerama Dome, whose enormous curved screen would be pointless to imitate in an ordinary multiplex. These theaters are drawing attention because the rooms are unusual, not despite it.

The Bruin’s return is still a plan rather than a completed rescue. Pereira is working with a small team, the projection equipment needs attention, and a full public calendar has not been announced. A beautiful marquee does not cover staffing, utilities, maintenance or weak ticket sales. The test begins after the reopening photographs, when the theater has to persuade people to return for an ordinary Tuesday screening as well as a sold-out event.

Westwood has an extra reason to want that experiment to work. Counter remembers crowds leaving the Bruin and Village and continuing into nearby restaurants and shops. The Westwood Village Improvement Association is already discussing events and promotions with the new operation. A theater audience arrives and departs at roughly the same time, producing the kind of sudden sidewalk life that retail committees spend years trying to manufacture.

Keeping the existing seats is a small decision with a clear idea behind it. The Bruin’s strongest asset is the experience a conventional upgrade might dilute: hundreds of people facing one large screen beneath the same curved marquee. Westwood does not need this theater to resemble a living room. It needs the lights back on.