GCC Avco Cinemas / AMC Avco / iPic Westwood

10840 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90014  | map | 

Opened: 1972 as a triplex by General Cinema as the GCC Avco Center Cinemas. The building is on the south side of the street a block east of Westwood Blvd. Photo: Bill Counter - 2007

Phone: 310-475-0711   Website: www.ipictheaters.com

Seating: 1,100, 700 and 400 when it opened as a triplex. The big one was split in half in the 1990s. It's now down to 480 seats total in 6 theatres. 

The big 70mm-equipped theatre downstairs had been a favorite of many moviegoers before it got split. Robert Simonton comments: 

"I was a projectionist there in 1989-90--a unique experience! No platters, 2 Cinemeccanica V-8 projectors in each booth, using big reels and automated changeovers. I ran around 9 70mm releases in that year and a half." 

 

Russ Jones adds:

 

"The downstairs auditorium was a incredible place to experience a movie in. Especially in 70mm presentations. And then GCC carved that auditorium in a bizarre 60/40 split. And never re-sloped the two auditoriums. Never forgave GCC."

 

After General Cinema headed into bankruptcy, the theatre was operated by AMC as the AMC Avco Cinemas. AMC closed the house in December 2011 after they were unable to come to an agreement with the landlord, Avco Corp., about the terms of a new lease.

Status: The building was renovated by Florida-based iPic Theaters to become a luxury 6 screen cinema with food service in the auditoria as well as a full service restaurant, Tanzy. It's now called the iPic Westwood. The reopening was May 2, 2014.

iPic filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2019. With many competitors on the scene offering some of the same amenities such as in-theatre dining and reclining seats, the company found $32 tickets an increasingly hard sell. Hollywood Reporter and Variety both had the story. The theatres will stayed open while the company pursued either a financial reorganization. At the time they noted that a sale was also a possibility. At the time of the filing, iPic had 123 screens at 16 locations, including the iPic Pasadena.  

 

Interior views: 

 

A photo of the upper lobby area in the theatre's 4 plex days. Thanks to Scott Neff on Cinema Tour for the 2008 photo.

A post-renovation boxoffice area photo from the iPic website.

 

Half of what had once been the big auditorium. It's a 2008 photo from Scott Neff on Cinema Tour.

A post-renovation auditorium photo from the iPic website.

More exterior views:

1977 - An Associated Press "Star Wars" photo published in June. Alison Martino had it as a post on her Facebook page Vintage Los Angeles. The film opened May 25, also playing at the Chinese. 

A cropped version of the photo appears with a Tested.com article about "Remembering the Opening Day...." See Michael Coate's "A Force To Be Reckoned With," his extensive 2015 article about the film's initial engagements. It's on the site The Digital Bits.

1977 - A Fitzgerald Whitney photo appearing on Calisphere from the UCLA Los Angeles Times Photographic Archives. People are reading "Fun in Space," a review of "Star Wars" posted in the theatre window.

1978 - Thanks to Ken McIntyre for sharing this photo in a post for the private Facebook group Photos of Los Angeles. It also popped up on the Classic Hollywood/Los Angeles/SFV Facebook page. 

1979 - "Alien" had arrived. Thanks to Bill Gabel for finding the photo for a post for the Photos of Los Angeles Facebook group. 

2008 - By this time it had become an AMC operation. Thanks to Don Solosan of the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation for this photo.  www.lahtf.org | LAHTF on Facebook

 

2009 - Thanks to Marc Wanamaker for this photo. It's one appearing in his Arcadia Publishing book "Westwood." There's a preview of the book to browse on Google Books. 

 

2009 - It was a week to see "Wolverine," "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" and "State of Play." It's a May photo from Richard DuVal, one that he shared in a post about the theatre on the private Facebook group General Cinema Memories. He later posted it for the public group Cinema Treasures.

 

2010 - Thanks to Richard DuVal for this July photo.

2015 - A view of the building revamped as the iPic. Thanks to Alison Martino for sharing the photo on the Vintage Los Angeles Facebook page. She added it as a comment to her post of a "Star Wars" opening day photo.

2015 - A night view from the iPic website. 

 

The Avco Cinemas in the Movies:

 

We see the Avco along with four other Westwood theatres plus a finale at Grauman's Chinese in Vernon Zimmerman's "Fade to Black" (American Cinema, 1980). It's a tale of an unhappy film buff on a killing spree. Thanks to Colonel Mortimer for the screenshots. 

 

A "Fade to Black" view of the Avco signage for "All That Jazz." Thanks to Jonathan Raines for researching the film. See the Historic L.A. Theatres in Movies post for shots of the other theatres from the film. 

More information: See the iPic Westwood page on Cinema Treasures. The Cinema Tour page has some nice photos by Scott Neff and Bob Meza.

Westwood-Century City Patch had a story about the coming of iPic in August 2012.  LA Observed had a May 2013 story about construction delays. It had been scheduled for an early 2013 opening.

There's a small 1998 shot of the Avco on the page about Westwood Theatres on the site Roadside Peek. There's also a small photo of similar vintage on the site Silver Screens in their two page 1999 survey of Los Angeles Theatres by Don Ceppi.

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