Seattle’s Cinerama movie theater to reopen under SIFF ownership

This is the second time in its 60-year history that the Cinerama has been saved from a dire fate. In the late 1990s, the movie house was struggling. At that point it was operated by Cineplex Odeon and owned by Rainier Properties, a division of Diamond Parking (which was considering turning it into a dinner theater or rock-climbing gym). 

Concerned Seattle cinephiles started a petition to save it, which prompted Paul Allen to step in and purchase the venue for $3.75 million. A lifelong sci-fi fan and movie buff, Allen had fond memories of seeing movies at the Cinerama in his youth, including 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968. After $5 million in renovations, he reopened the venue in 1998.

The Cinerama underwent more updates, including installing bigger (though fewer) seats beneath the twinkling LED-starlit ceiling and adding massive surround-sound. But with Allen’s death in 2018, the fate of several of his treasured cultural assets, managed by his umbrella company Vulcan, was thrown into question. According to Allen’s last wishes, the Cinerama was to be sold with the proceeds directed toward philanthropy. 

In 2020, just before the pandemic hit, the Cinerama closed suddenly for unspecified renovations. As the COVID crisis settled over the city, the theater’s website noted it would be “closed for the foreseeable future.” 

On November 10, 2021, the Seattle Times editorial board published a plea entitled “Seattle needs a hero to save beloved Cinerama.” Two days later, SIFF put out a statement on the status of the Cinerama expressing support for preserving the theater but adding that “as a nonprofit organization reemerging from COVID closures, [SIFF] would need additional funding or investment to take on the operations of an additional theater.” 

SIFF has not specified how the funding or investment came about, but in a press release thanked its board, “especially David and Linda Cornfield,” for making the acquisition possible. 

SIFF executive director Tom Mara, in prepared video remarks, hailed the revived Cinerama’s “flagship role” in “welcoming people back to downtown” after pandemic absences. “[The acquisition] enables us to keep this building in the lives of people who love film,” he said. “This is going to be the place where film shimmers in our city.”