Santa Monica ArcLight Cinemas Faces Lawsuit, Eviction For Back Rent

The ArcLight Cinemas in Santa Monica face an eviction lawsuit from the Santa Monica Place for non-payment of rent.

Real estate investment trust Macerich served an eviction notice on April 13. The notice came a day after Pacific Theatres announced the permanent closure of all 17 of its ArcLight and Pacific locations.

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Santa Monica Arclight in 2019 was one of the lowest-grossing cinemas for the chain, with just more than $4M, per sources. That contrasts with the more popular Hollywood Arclight and Cinerama Dome, which combined did more than $15M.

Exhibition sources also say that the Santa Monica Arclight location has a pretty fierce lease, which has prevented the venue from further churning money.

The Santa Monica eviction lawsuit gives Pacific seven days to pay $368,841.60, or forfeit the premises. Pacific has yet to respond in court.

This latest round continues litigation that began in February between the two parties Macerich filed a suit against Pacific on Feb. 25 for breaching its lease at two locations: the ArcLight in Santa Monica and the Pacific location in Lakewood.

The legal documents claimed Pacific had not paid rent for either location since April 2020, when the chain closed its locations because of the pandemic. The suit also claimed Pacific had been underpaying its rent on the Lakewood lease from January to March 2020.

The suit claimed Pacific owed $1.9 million in back rent on the Santa Monica property and $1.5 million on the Lakewood theater. There has been no public Pacific response to that suit.

Pacific is battling on other fronts as well. OliverMcMillan, the San Diego developer that owns the theater in downtown Culver City, is seeking $781,999.62 in delinquent rent in a lawsuit filed last July.

The lawsuits were first reported by Variety.

Anthony D’Alessandro contributed to this report.

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