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Santa Clarita theater shortage
posted by
Michael Zoldessy
on
October 24, 2006 at 7:35 am
SANTA CLARITA, CA — As evidenced by the number of articles you see on this website, new megaplexes are popping up all around the country to fulfill the growing suburbia. However, with a constantly rising population, the Santa Clarita Valley is not seeing a rising number of screens.
Every year, throngs of movie crews flock to the Santa Clarita Valley to capitalize on the area’s photogenic suburban streets and mountainous topography.
But these days the rapidly growing city is missing a key component in the film business: movie screens.
Santa Clarita has just two movie theaters and 22 screens for an area of nearly 168,000 residents.
To read more about this, visit the San Fernando Valley Business Journal.
Comments (5)
Santa Clarita doubles for the fictional city of Agrestic, where the Showtime television show Weeds takes place.
There’s also a crazy long list of other film and tv credits.
The Santa Clarita Valley has one screen for every 7,637 persons an good average.
http://movie-theatre.org/usa/ca/la/lancaster.pdf
According to the figures quoted in the article, 22 screens serving 168,000 people is more than enough screens. You need 10,000 people per screen to have a good business. Not really enough people to support all those screens. No wonder the other theaters closed.
This area could support a larger theatre by the civic center. This area does get a lot of crowd from Magic mountain, and the northern San Fernando Valley, which near San Fernando doesnt have a single theatre. One 20 screen complex could compete with the others perfectly in this area.
I think it’s funny that people think the area is underscreened. I think Santa Clarita is fine, and that perhaps people are just so used to seeing a glut everywhere else.