Bay Theater Reopens in Pacific Palisades After Nearly Two Years Dark

The Bay Theater in Pacific Palisades will screen movies again on Friday, nearly two years after the January 2025 Palisades fire forced it to close.

Skydance's Paramount Pictures, which took over the theater's long-term lease last month, announced the reopening Monday. The company confirmed the date in a press release Tuesday. First-run titles on the opening slate include "Ebenezer," "The Cat in the Hat," "Wild Horse Nine," "You Can See Everything" and "Godzilla Minus Zero."

The five-auditorium multipex sits inside the Palisades Village shopping center, owned by Rick Caruso's company. It had been operated by La Jolla-based luxury chain The Lot. The venue now features new laser projection, immersive surround sound and adjustable seating with personal dining tables and service buttons. Beyond first-run studio releases, the programming will mix nostalgic classics with curated events for the local community.

What does the reopening mean for Pacific Palisades?

Caruso framed the theater's return as a broader signal for the city. "The comeback of this movie theater is a great signal for all of L.A.," Caruso said in a previous interview. "Los Angeles is resilient, and we're going to show the country that Los Angeles can bounce back from a terrible, terrible disaster, and the comeback is going to be much greater than the setback."

The theater anchors a shopping center that has already come back. Palisades Village reopened in August after more than $100 million in renovations, including major infrastructure work. The upscale outdoor mall survived the fire but required refurbishment to eliminate potential contaminants from the blaze — a spend of roughly $100 million for a single retail property, a measure of the fire's economic damage.

Who has run the theater before?

Netflix previously held the lease, taking it over in 2021. The streamer used the venue for special events, classic film screenings and showcases of its own original theatrical releases. Skydance's Paramount Pictures stepped in last month with a long-term lease of its own.

Skydance leadership cast the deal in community terms. "Together with Caruso, we are proud to help bring the Bay back to life as a place for the Pacific Palisades community to gather around the shared experience of cinema," Ellison previously said in a statement to The Times. "This theater has always meant more than movies alone — it's woven into the fabric of this neighborhood, and helping restore it is a privilege."

The theater deal sits against a backdrop of aggressive corporate restructuring at the newly merged studio. The source report notes the reopening follows Skydance's acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, with the combined company working to trim $6 billion in expenses while managing mandatory slate quotas. Executives have warned the Warner Bros. film slate would be disappointing in the fourth quarter, the report said. The report also states that Gunn and Safran will be replaced by Marvel veteran Jeremy Latcham.

For marketers tracking experiential and retail-anchored entertainment, the reopening pairs a physical venue revival with a studio eager to showcase first-run product in a rebuilt, affluent neighborhood.