{"id":160,"date":"2009-03-30T12:16:20","date_gmt":"2009-03-30T12:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/?p=160"},"modified":"2009-04-02T05:24:08","modified_gmt":"2009-04-02T05:24:08","slug":"still-standing-the-brea-plaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/2009\/03\/30\/still-standing-the-brea-plaza\/","title":{"rendered":"Still Standing: The Brea Plaza"},"content":{"rendered":"
This week marks the anniversary of the Brea Plaza <\/a>opening. An undersized and\u00a0unassuming theatre, the Plaza never made much of a mark on Orange County, but the venue has somehow managed to survive for thirty two years.<\/div>\n
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Opened on April 1, 1977, the Plaza was the first theatre built by Mann in Orange County (previous county sites had been acquired through Fox West Coast\/National General). Typical of the chain’s initial multiplex expansion, the\u00a0theatre’s\u00a0design cut far too many corners and\u00a0failed to utilize a prime piece of real estate properly.\u00a0As a result, the Plaza never managed to capture a sizeable audience, during it’s first run days, and became known as a\u00a0movie going destination of last resort.\u00a0Rather than closing up shop, the theatre would fall under the management of Edwards in 1991\u00a0and attempt art film booking, to boost ticket sales, with equally poor results. Following\u00a0Edwards’ bankruptcy, the Plaza was\u00a0one of the chain’s first theatres to go dark and there was talk of converting the\u00a0building in to a warehouse for a near bye furniture store.\u00a0Then, in a last ditch effort, the infamous Captain Blood’s Family Theatres <\/a>took on the site in 2001, as a discount\u00a0venue. Blood\u00a0would basically run the theatre in to the ground, allowing the facility to\u00a0fall in to extreme disrepair,\u00a0before being evicted in 2006.<\/div>\n
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Following Blood’s departure, the Brea Plaza stood vacant and forgotten, failing to attract any\u00a0further interest from operators; the theatre’s\u00a0awkwardly compact lobby, severely undersized concession stand,\u00a0and hidden location calling for far too great a\u00a0remodeling\u00a0investment to make the site worthwhile as a cinema. Yet, true to the Plaza’s\u00a0“never say die” history,\u00a0the theatre managed to briefly reopen, as a “haunted attraction”.<\/div>\n
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\u00a0<\/div>\n
Licensing the “Saw” film franchise, from Lionsgate, a local special effects aficionado\u00a0turned the vacant theatre in to\u00a0a, “Saw” theme, haunted house in the Fall of 2008. While\u00a0only open for a month, the event managed to, temporarily,\u00a0bring some attention back to\u00a0the Brea Plaza. Heavily modified with horror props and set pieces, the theatre’s interior was barely recognizable from\u00a0it’s\u00a0years as a cinema, but the reworking was a vast improvement from the vandalized mess that had\u00a0existed\u00a0previously.\u00a0However, the\u00a0attraction’s decorating efforts also placed one more hurdle\u00a0to be overcome for any\u00a0future suitors.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Between the Plaza’s original design shortcomings, years of neglect, and remaining\u00a0horror theme decor, there seems little chance anything further will become of the tiny theatre. But, considering it’s almost phoenix like ability, to\u00a0rise from the ashes, one can never\u00a0truly write off\u00a0the Brea Plaza.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week marks the anniversary of the Brea Plaza opening. An undersized and\u00a0unassuming theatre, the Plaza never made much of a mark on Orange County, but the venue has somehow managed to survive for thirty two years. \u00a0 Opened on April 1, 1977, the Plaza was the first theatre built by Mann in Orange County […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions\/163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}