The Bruin Theater, a 670-seat single-screen cinema in Westwood Village, Los Angeles, is set to reopen in October 2026 under Rui Pereira, the Canadian operator behind Toronto's Kingsway Theater (Variety).

The Bruin has been dark since 2024, when Regency Theatres' lease ended at both the Bruin and the Village Theatre across the street. Regency's own website still lists the Broxton Avenue location as "PERMANENTLY CLOSED" (Regency Theatres). That label is about to be retired.

Built in 1937, the Bruin is one of Los Angeles's oldest purpose-built movie houses still standing. It is also a screen star in its own right: the marquee appeared in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Pereira's plans for the space go beyond standard projection. He intends to install 35mm and 70mm film capability — formats that most commercial cinemas abandoned years ago in the shift to digital. The programming mix will combine first-run releases, classic films, and special events, according to Variety.

Ben Steinberg, who helped build public attention around the Cinerama Dome's reopening, is assisting Pereira with marketing for the Bruin's return. That earlier campaign centred on the geodesic dome on Sunset Boulevard, which Sony Pictures announced it will operate, with Alamo Drafthouse running the former ArcLight multiplex alongside it.

Westwood Village has seen a quiet turnaround in its cinema footprint over the past two years. The Village Theatre, directly across from the Bruin, was taken over by director Jason Reitman and a consortium of film-makers and now operates as Director's Village. The Landmark Westwood, dating to 1946, remains open on Broxton Avenue. Blue Fox Entertainment recently took over the former iPic Theatre on Wilshire Boulevard.

What stands out is the texture of what Pereira is proposing. A single-screen cinema with 670 seats and real film projection is a costly proposition in 2026 — the economics of running one auditorum, no matter how beloved, are unforgiving. But the cluster of reopenings around Westwood suggests there is an audience for exactly that kind of room: big screen, one film at a time, the way the building was built to show them nearly ninety years ago.