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Metropolitan Theatres

About Us

Company History

Los Angeles based Metropolitan Theatres Corporation has been a privately held company owned by the Corwin family since 1923. Metropolitan currently operates a diverse collection of historic properties and state-of-the-art multiplexes among its 15 theatres, 85 screens, and two IMAX auditoriums in California, Colorado, and Utah. Metropolitan is focused on achieving its next generation growth plan through new development, theatre acquisitions, and providing theatre management services.

Bruce C. Corwin, the Company’s Chairman and CEO, led the Company for 40 years.  He passed away November 4, 2021. Bruce's son, David, is Metropolitan's President and represents the fourth generation of the Corwin family to run the company. Joseph H. Corwin moved to California from Sioux City, Iowa and founded the Company in 1923 with one theatre, the Broadway, in downtown Los Angeles. His sons, Lawrence and Sherrill, grew with the business, and Metropolitan was the dominant motion picture exhibitor in downtown Los Angeles by the late 1940s. Bruce's father, Sherrill, ultimately became the chief executive of the growing circuit and fostered expansion into Palm Springs and Santa Barbara, California. Metropolitan's largest area of concentration is in Santa Barbara County, where it has operated since 1950.

In the mid-1960s, Metropolitan was among the first exhibition circuits in the nation to venture into a Spanish language film policy, both in subtitle form for American movies and in Spanish for Mexican produced films. The Company continues to operate a Spanish language theatre in greater Los Angeles as well as a traditional ten-plex in Calexico, California. 

In September 2003, the Company formed Metro/Rocky Mountain Cinemas which operate state-of-the-art cinemas in ski resort areas of the Western United States that include Loveland, Colorado; Steamboat Springs, Colorado; and Park City, Utah.

The Corwin family's participation in public affairs and civic and charitable projects is well-established in Los Angeles and beyond. Metropolitan fosters local relationships in the communities in which it operates. At the University of California, Santa Barbara, there are Corwin awards for screen writing and play writing and dance and music composition. There is also continuing support for gifted music students through the Los Angeles Music Center Unified Fund. To further the cause of higher education, there have been innumerable benefit performances in Metropolitan's theatres.