When Save Your Cinema creator Ben Steinberg pulled up to the Cinerama Dome last weekend, he didn’t think it would mark the end of his six-year journey to save the historic movieplex.
Back in 2021, Steinberg started a “Save the Cinerama Dome” petition that’s since amassed over 31,000 signatures. In the years since the Dome’s final screenings in 2020, he’s publicly pressured the Forman family, who have operated the complex since its 1963 opening and remain its owners through the Decurion Corporation and Robertson Properties Group, to bring back the storied venue.
“Our campaign ‘Save The Cinerama Dome’ respectfully asks Mr. Christopher Forman CEO of The Decurion Corporation to either reopen the Cinerama Dome and continue to operate it as a cinema, or to lease the property to another exhibitor that is willing to operate it,” the petition reads.
Last weekend, Steinberg took his biggest swing yet, raising over $2,000 via GoFundMe to project giant images onto the historic theater featuring photos of Christopher Forman and son, Tait, with text reading, “Mr. Forman REOPEN THE DOME!”
Per Steinberg, a security guard for the attached shopping complex approached him on Friday evening to tell him he was contacting the owners. Two hours later, cops arrived. Steinberg was allegedly told that the owners of the Dome requested the police inform him that his behavior was considered harassment. He shut the operation down.
But by the next morning, the crusading cinéaste tweeted that he intended to return on Saturday to project again, writing, “If Tait Forman has me ARRESTED then so be it!” Steinberg’s attorney then advised him to stop — citing the police call as a “warning” — and he stood down.
“I’m really just disappointed that I have to end my campaign,” Steinberg told P6H on Monday morning. “I did not mean any harm to the Forman family and have loved their operation of cinemas.”
The Sunset Blvd. theater in a geodesic dome was opened by Pacific Theatres founder William R. Forman and attendees at its ’63 debut included Spencer Tracy, Buddy Hackett and Mickey Rooney, since Forman had promised United Artists he’d have the theater ready for the debut of “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World.”
But its long road to reopening has been a saga worthy of its own cinematic retelling. The latest chapter came in late 2025, when the Dome filed to renew the venue’s conditional-use permit to sell booze. (Robertson Properties Group also owns the Warner Hollywood Theatre on Hollywood Blvd., which has sat vacant since 2013.)
Around town, Quentin Tarantino (who hoped buy the Cinerama Dome and featured it in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood…”) purchased the historic Vista Theatre in Los Feliz back in 2021, after he bought the New Beverly Cinema in 2007.
Kristen Stewart recently bought the Highland Theater, with plans to renovate, while a Jason Reitman-led group is planning a $25 million overhaul of the Westwood Village Theater.
Steinberg isn’t hopeful the Dome will reopen. “I don’t think so,” the Cal State Northridge filmmaking student says. “The first communication I’ve had from the owners in five years is them calling the police on me and telling me to shut down. It’s definitely a big sign of what their intentions are.”
A rep for Robertson Properties Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment. LAPD’s media spox cited a policy of declining to comment on ongoing investigations.
