‘Dark Knight’: Hollywood’s new art-house hit?

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I guess the specialty business really has collapsed. The Landmark, the Westside of Los Angeles’ premiere art-house oasis, where discerning adults can sip cappuccino, munch on vegan cookies and see their favorite new existential French thriller or auteur-driven drama, is full of ... studio popcorn movies! Half of the Landmark’s 12 screens are devoted to showings of ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘Mamma Mia!,’ the two current box-office hits. The complex is still offering such art-house favorites as ‘Mongol’ and ‘The Wackness,’ but in very small portions. If you want to see ‘The Visitor,’ the summer’s one modest art-house success (and a wonderful film), it has five showings a night. If you want to see ‘Dark Knight,’ you can pick from (gasp!) 17 showings a night.

When Landmark first arrived, its top executives assured neighborhood activists that it wouldn’t be showing ‘Spider-Man’-type blockbusters, which could attract boisterous teenagers to the area. Has it abandoned those promises? Or has it simply adjusted to the marketplace, which has been a disaster for art-house productions?

Claudia Eller, our business section’s indefatigable film expert, files this report:

Gareth Wigan can’t remember the last time he went out to a movie on a Saturday night.

But, this past weekend, the veteran Sony Pictures executive not only broke with tradition, but he went to see, of all things, “The Dark Knight.” At 76, Wigan hardly fits the demo that rival studio Warner Bros. was targeting on opening weekend of its new blockbuster. And, where Wigan went to see the film was equally surprising: the Landmark Theatres—an upscale, state-of-the-art multiplex in West Los Angeles known for playing specialized films such as the current releases “The Visitor,” “The Wackness” and “Mongol.”

Wigan and his wife, longtime publicist Pat Newcomb, typically go to Sunday matinees. But Sunday afternoon they had another engagement, so Saturday night it was. Wigan said he was anxious to see the new Batman movie but wasn’t about to go to another of his favorite theaters, the AMC Century City 15, where he’d surely have to fight the herd of filmgoers. “I’m not that crazy about crowds,” says Wigan, a soft-spoken Brit whose career in Hollywood spans more than four decades.

At Landmark, unlike most theaters around the country, there were no lines of crazed fans dressed as Heath Ledger’s Joker character. That’s because Landmark, like Pacific Theatres’ ArcLight Cinemas, offers moviegoers reserved ticketing — particularly appealing to hassle-intolerant adults who can be assured of a specific seat even though they have to pay more. “I wouldn’t have gone to see the most popular movie of the year without being able to pre-buy and reserve tickets,” says Wigan.

So, how did it come to pass that a big studio movie like “Dark Knight” wound up playing on four out of 12 screens at what is essentially an art-house theater that doesn’t exactly cater to teens? Typically, more commercial movies play a few miles down the road in Westwood or Century City, though Landmark has played a smattering of bigger films since its $20-million, 2,000-seat luxury theater was built last June. Landmark’s chief executive, Ted Mundorff, said while the theater’s core business continues to be “smart, independent movies” for sophisticated audiences, he likes also playing the more popular films when he can get his hands on them.

“By and large commercial films have been hard to book,” said Mundorff, who not only called Warner Bros. to see if he could book “Dark Knight” but actually had the chutzpah to ask for an exclusive run without it playing in Century City’s AMC complex. Nice try. The studio wasn’t about to bypass one of the city’s most heavily trafficked movie venues.

Mundorff said the film is performing extremely well and that most of the shows sold out over the weekend.

“Hopefully, the success of ‘Dark Knight’ will give me more access to studio product.”
But, don’t look for Landmark to cede its place anytime soon as the Westside’s go-to-upscale multiplex for offbeat fare.