A projection-mapped protest against the ownership of the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood — on the theatre itself.

Courtesy of Benjamin Steinberg

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Since Hollywood’s iconic Cinerama Dome movie theater closed in 2020, at the onset of the pandemic, Benjamin Steinberg has been making a scene about it. He started a popular dedicated social media account, launched a petition that amassed more than 30,000 signatures, held multiple rallies and, in recent days, staged a special effects-driven protest.

That last one drew a police response, and now he says his “movement” to “save the Cinerama Dome” has ended amid fear of legal reprisal.

What happened?

The 26-year-old actor-filmmaker hired an on-site lighting engineer to projection-map a vivid rebuke of the property’s ownership on the theater itself for what he views as civic abandonment. The illumination specifically called out Chris Forman, CEO of his family’s Decurion Corp.: “Mr. Forman REOPEN THE DOME!”

Forman’s father William — a pioneering Southern California drive-in theater owner who also founded the Pacific multiplex chain — opened the Dome in 1963, premiering with It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Later, Forman himself built up and later shuttered his own, high-end ArcLight theater group, including its flagship location adjoining the Dome. The family’s business is now focused in commercial and industrial property development.

Two hours into the second night’s demonstration, on Apr. 3, the LAPD informed Steinberg and his associates that the Formans considered it harassment and wanted it shut down immediately. While they weren’t threatened with arrest or issued a citation — they were operating from a public sidewalk across Sunset Blvd. — Steinberg has since chosen to end the campaign. “I can’t continue,” he says. “This is clearly a First Amendment issue but they’re very wealthy and I can’t afford to mess around with them.”

Steinberg considers himself an earnest accountability activist, armed with public records and insider tip-offs. Meanwhile, the Forman family clearly sees him as a gadfly nuisance.

Since the Dome’s closure he’s been a close, invariably hopeful chronicler of what he’s believed to be the venue’s imminent reopening. But more recently, his messaging has turned pessimistic, documenting the structure’s accumulating graffiti, broken historic tilework and revealing finances.

“I’ve found that they reassessed the property to get lower taxes,” Steinberg says, pointing to L.A. County documentation. “That confirmed for me that they aren’t reopening the Dome any time soon. They just delay the reopening and continue to blame it on Covid.” He adds that he’s separately been told by people in contact with decision-makers at Decurion that “they don’t want to reopen it and lose money on theatrical [exhibition] right now.”

Decurion didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In 2025, The Hollywood Reporter found that several major exhibitors had made serious inquiries about the Dome, but it wasn’t being made available by the family. Decurion’s other legacy property holdings include the Hollywood Pacific Theatre, which was first developed by the Warner brothers in 1928 as a showcase for sound and later was itself converted to the widescreen Cinerama format. It’s been dormant since sustaining damage in the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Steinberg, who attended films at the Dome multiple times each week before its shuttering, cites the Hollywood Pacific Theatre as a grim precedent, and thinks civic officials should be doing more to pressure the Formans to return the landmark to active use. “I would hope that city leadership can try to persuade them to reopen it,” he says. “Or at least encourage the family to better communicate to the public its intentions.”

The Cinerama Theatre in its earlier years.

Courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment

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