Maya Cinemas offer the same high-end amenities moviegoers have come to expect, such as luxury recliners and assigned seating, as well as something a little extra to better serve Latino audiences, the most fervent movie-going segment, according to film industry figures. While Indio has Regal Cinemas Metro 8 Theater, many local residents say they prefer to travel to the new Century Theaters in La Quinta, which features recliner seating, a bar and expanded food options at their concession stands. More: College-bound Latinos seek to move from home, beyond family-first stereotype known as 'Familismo' More: Indio man identified in officer-involved shooting at Eisenhower Health in Rancho Mirage More: New 14-screen movie theater coming to Indio, a community Maya Cinemas sees as under-served “We’ve been looking at this area for a long time because it’s significantly underserved,” he said. Soon, Maya Cinemas will break ground on a brand, new 14-screen theater in north Indio on Avenue 42 near Monroe Ave, culminating a nearly 15-year effort by Esparza to bring a new theater to the eastern Coachella Valley. Since 2003, when he opened his first Maya Cinema in Salinas, Esparza has opened a half-dozen other locations mostly in California in cities with growing Latino middle- and working-class families like Bakersfiled, Fresno and most recently, North Las Vegas. Patrons flocked to watch films during Mexico's Golden Age of Cinema, which thrived from the 1930s to the early 1960s. The eventual collapse of the Mexican film industry in the 1980s, and shift by movie exhibitors who built multiplex in suburban malls locations, would starve Latino neighborhoods of local movie theater options.īut Esparza hopes to change that. “On Sunday afternoon, my whole family would go after church.”īefore its demolition in 1989, the Brooklyn Theater was among the last relics of the small cinema houses that showed both Hollywood and Mexican films in L.A. “My friends and I would go off on a Saturday morning and go to Brooklyn Theater and watch movies all day long,” said Esparza, a film producer whose 1997 biopic “Selena” launched Jennifer Lopez to stardom. Moctesuma Esparza, 70, fondly recalls spending weekends growing up in east Los Angeles watching first-run Hollywood and Mexican films at the local one-screen neighborhood movie house, long since razed. Today this mission continues.Watch Video: Diversity championed at Palm Springs Moctesuma then set out to create beautiful movie theaters that could be a cornerstone for generations to come. After identifying the right community, he purchased land so that he would be vested. Moctesuma embarked on a mission to target Latino communities that were dramatically underserved with cinemas. While on this venture he began to notice that there were no cinemas in Mexican-American populated urban areas despite the fact that the Latino community has consistently been the highest per capita patronage of cinema. During this time, Moctesuma brought these films on multi-city premier tours hoping to expose his films to a wide audience in an attempt to show them to Mexican-American audiences. In his tenure, Moctesuma produced motion pictures such as Selena, Gettysburg and the Milagro Beanfield War, to name just a few. These rich childhood memories led Moctesuma to a long career as a Hollywood film producer. This belief started for Moctesuma when he was a child in Boyle Heights during the explosion of American cinema and, in particular, Mexican-American cinema. Maya theaters offers first-run Hollywood movies in high-end cinemas focused on quality of design, state-of-the-art film presentation technology, and providing first-rate entertainment with superior customer service.įor Maya’s founder Moctesuma Esparza, the cinema experience is a time to spend with family and friends while enjoying the richest and most immersive art form ever created. Today this vision has expanded to Bakersfield, Pittsburg, Fresno and Delano, CA with continuing expansion plans in California and beyond. In 2003 Moctesuma’s vision was realized with the launch of the first Maya Cinema in Salinas, CA. Maya’s founder, Moctesuma Esparza combines his lifelong love of film, his vast experience as a film producer and pioneer and entertainment business developer in his pursuit of creating cornerstone movie theaters in communities lacking first run film entertainment options. Maya Cinemas was chartered in 2000 with a mission to develop, build, own and operate modern, first-run, megaplex movie theaters in underserved, family oriented, Latino-dominant communities. Maya Cinemas along with their follow honorees will participate in Hispanic Lifestyle’s BizCon 2018taking place on Jat the Ontario Airport Hotel and Conference Center. Maya Cinemas a megaplex movie theaters have been selected as a Hispanic Lifestyle 2018 Survived and Thrived Business Honoree.
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