Kristen Stewart has quietly scooped up the Highland Theatre in Los Angeles’ Highland Park and says she plans to bring the nearly 100-year-old movie palace back to life as a neighborhood cinema and creative hub. The triplex has sat dark since it closed in early 2024, its marquee blank and its interior in need of serious TLC. Stewart told Architectural Digest she “ran toward it with everything I had,” calling the purchase a personal leap toward saving local moviegoing.
In a profile published Feb. 4, Architectural Digest reported Stewart bought the Highland Theatre and laid out her plans to repair original architectural details while programming the space for community screenings, workshops, and events. “It’s an opportunity to make a space to gather and scheme and dream together,” she told the magazine, adding that the venue should be “for the community” rather than just for hardcore cinephiles.
The Highland opened in 1925 and was designed by architect Lewis Arthur Smith, part of a wave of ornate movie palaces that lined early 20th-century Los Angeles corridors. The building shut its doors on Feb. 29, 2024, after struggling to recover financially in the post-pandemic marketplace, owner Dan Akarakian told the Los Angeles Times, leaving a long-running neighborhood anchor sitting dark.
A wave of filmmaker-led restorations
Stewart’s move slots neatly into a recent trend of filmmakers stepping in to rescue historic L.A. movie houses, from Quentin Tarantino’s theater buys to a 2024 coalition of directors who acquired Westwood’s Village Theatre. Those efforts have been framed as attempts to protect small-scale programming and community venues in the face of multiplex consolidation, a storyline The Wrap has been tracking as the list of creative owners keeps growing.
What Stewart wants for Highland Park
Stewart has called the Highland an “antidote to all the corporate bullshit,” saying she wants to restore its historic bones while keeping the space genuinely useful for nearby residents and working filmmakers. Architectural Digest reported she is planning community screenings, filmmaker workshops, and collaborations with local nonprofits, and NBC Los Angeles noted her ties to city charities as context for the purchase.
Stewart has not given a firm timeline for renovations, and People reports that the restoration work will be extensive. Neighbors and preservation groups are likely to watch for permit filings and a formal plan as the project moves from celebratory purchase to the far messier phase of actually reopening the doors.
