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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Santa Clarita, in Need of More Film Screens, Loses Festival

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. With such a limited supply, seats at those theaters are prime real estate, said Larry Mankin, president and CEO of the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce. “They are always busy on the weekends,” he said. So busy that earlier this month officials with the International Family Film Festival, which has called Santa Clarita home for 11 years, were told there wasn’t enough space at the theaters for this year’s festival. They were forced to take the drastic step of pulling up stakes and moving all the way to Raleigh Studios in Hollywood for the 12th annual festival. “There’s no room at the inn; the fall schedule was booked,” said Suzanne Shoemaker, who started the festival and still lives in Santa Clarita. “With the demand on the screens in Santa Clarita, they didn’t have any space for us.” Jason Crawford, a film liaison and spokesman for Santa Clarita, said that while the festival’s move was surprising, the reason behind it was not. He said it underscores the pent-up demand for theaters in the Santa Clarita Valley. “I’m very sorry to see them go. I wish they could continue here,” he said. “There’s definitely a need for more screens.” He said the two movie theaters in city limits the Edwards Grand Palace Valencia Stadium 12 on Town Center Drive and Edwards Canyon Country Stadium 10 on Soledad Canyon Road are packed on most Saturdays. The next closest theater, Mann Granada Hills, is about 12 miles away. Crawford said the demand is certainly the result of the region’s swift population increase. Entertainment demand Ten years ago, when the population was 112,059, two movie theaters would have been fine for Santa Clarita. But as the population has ballooned it’s expected to reach 352,382 by 2025, according to the Southern California Association of Governments the need for services has grown as well, Crawford said. “There’s been such growth and demand for evening entertainment,” Crawford said. At the same time population has gone up, the region saw a decrease in screens. The second-run Plaza Theatre closed in the 1990s and a drive-in movie theater was torn down to make way for the current Santa Clarita Lanes before that. Crawford said residents have taken notice and routinely tell the city they want more theaters. “That’s something we’ve repeatedly heard,” Crawford said. In response, the city is working to attract additional movie theater operators to the area, which would seem alluring given its younger and higher-income population, he said. The city has “started conversations” with several movie chains and have been approached by several others about opening locations in the city. Crawford said the city has also talked with Edwards Theatres about opening a third location in Santa Clarita. (A spokesman for Regal Entertainment Group, the Knoxville, Tenn.-based owner of Edwards, did not return calls.) So far, however, nothing has happened. Mankin points out that it’s a market issue. He expects that when movie theater chains get wind of the demand, they’ll come calling. “If there was a significant need, the free enterprise process would come in and build another facility,” he said. For the moment, though, the International Family Film Festival is calling Hollywood home, Shoemaker said. But that doesn’t mean it’s not sad to leave Santa Clarita. “We started in Santa Clarita. Everyone in Santa Clarita has helped us,” she said. “(The city has) just grown so much over the years.”

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