Mathew Garcia of Boyle Heights goes to the movies about once a week, ignoring theaters in his Eastside Latino neighborhood and heading straight for the suburbs.
His favorite destination: nearby Alhambra, where he says he prefers the more up-to-date and comfortable multiplexes, often featuring big screens, surround sound and stadium seating. The theaters in his neighborhood are "smaller and louder," he said.
Garcia and moviegoers like him are the target of a new joint venture by well-known film producer Moctesuma Esparza and a Chicago real estate developer that aims to deliver first-class theaters along with restaurants and stores to inner-city Latino neighborhoods.
"As a producer, I know what a quality movie experience is," said Esparza, whose credits include "Selena," "Gettysburg" and "The Milagro Beanfield War."
Esparza's Maya Cinemas in a joint venture with developer Urban Retail Properties plans to build 500 screens in 40 locations over the next five years. Their first complex is operating in Salinas, Calif., and others are under construction or close to starting in Fresno, Bakersfield and Santa Fe, N.M.
Separately, Esparza plans to open a Maya Cinemas in Inglewood on his own with modern facilities and featuring first-run films in English and Spanish.
Theater operators in recent years have begun to recognize that ethnic neighborhoods are often underserved, said Patrick Corcoran of the National Assn. of Theatre Owners. African American and Indian enclaves also have been identified as rich with opportunity for theater builders.
The association estimates that the nation's 175 million moviegoers generally reflect the U.S. population mix with whites in the majority followed by Latinos and blacks. But, Corcoran said, "the most consistent movie viewers are Latinos."
One of them is James Rojas, who went to theaters every Saturday as a boy. Now a planner for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Rojas lives downtown and takes the subway to new high-tech theaters in Hollywood.
"I like the collective movie-going experience," Rojas said.
Esparza, who grew up attending Spanish-language movies in downtown Los Angeles in the 1950s and 1960s, traces the strong Latino interest in movies to the Mexican movie industry's rich past when its films competed with Hollywood fare.
Another factor, he said, is that the Latino population skews young, and young people in general are more likely to attend movies.
