Screen wars: Westwood losing its pull as L.A. movie-going magnet.

Back in the 1970s and '80s, lines of movie-goers that wound around the block were a common sight in Westwood. But now the once-teeming village's two-decade run as the movie-going capital of Los Angeles appears to be over.

Westwood's domination of the lucrative Westside movie business has been broken by the 14-screen AMC complex at the Century City Shopping Center and the 17 screens tucked into two blocks of Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade.

While business has continued to slide in Westwood, Century City is rolling up better than a 10 percent increase this summer compared to last year and ticket sales are expected to exceed $13 million this year, according to Greg Rutkowski, vice president for AMC's West Coast operations.

Westwood was once a magnet, attracting moviegoers from many parts of Los Angeles. But it now caters primarily to its immediate residents and college students, theater owners say.

The most telling sign of Westwood's slippage is not its shorter lines, but the breaking of "the pocket" by Hollywood's major studios. The pocket refers to the area within a seven-mile radius that encompasses most of the Westside's affluent neighborhoods.

In the past, Hollywood studios would give Westwood's three big theaters -- The Bruin, National and Village -- the exclusive break on most big films in this pocket. This summer, however, the pocket was ripped open as Century City and Santa Monica were given the major summer films, such as "Batman Returns," simultaneously with Westwood.

The studios broke their Westwood-exclusive policy even though Warner Bros. Inc. and Paramount Pictures jointly own Mann Theaters, which has nine screens in the village. Theater owners estimate that Mann's business in Westwood has dropped 50 percent over the last two years. Mann executives did not return phone calls last week.

"It's no secret, Century City is great, Santa Monica is great and Westwood is in transition. It seems to me Westwood has become pretty much a straight UCLA audience," commented Derick McLay, United Artists Theatre Circuit Inc. Southern California film buyer. U.A. has four screens in Westwood.

Studio executives privately acknowledge the Westside shift, but are reluctant to speak for attribution. A senior executive at a major studio said, "I can't believe this has happened. Westwood was the movie capital of the United States, but now it has been reduced to just a good two-week run. Because of sentimental reasons, pictures hang in there longer than they should. I still want my showcase films there because those theaters offer a spectacular presentation. In time Westwood will come back."

Westwood's decline stems partially from two well-publicized crime sprees in the summer of 1990. Looters broke windows after they couldn't gain admittance to a sold-out opening performance of "New Jack City." In an earlier incident, teenagers attending UCLA's Mardi Gras ransacked a few stores.

Just one homicide has been committed in the village the last five years. But it got far greater press coverage than the nightly homicides in other parts of the city. The most recent looting incident in Westwood came this April during the Los Angeles riots.

With its image tarnished, Westwood is now relatively quiet on Saturday nights. On one recent Saturday, only a few cars tooled down Westwood Boulevard. Police barricades that once blocked bumper-to-bumper weekend cruising are gone, and half a dozen shops along Westwood Boulevard now display "For Lease" signs rather than trendy merchandise in their windows. Yesterdays, once a thriving bistro, is now shuttered.

The crime issue is downplayed by the Westwood Village Association, a confederation of local business people, which is trying to restore the village's former image. Peggy Kidwell, a director on the association's board, said a police study covering 1986-1991 showed that Westwood had fewer crimes than did other commercial areas on the Westside.

The association is considering hiring a marketing and public relations firm to promote the village. In May a radio campaign to introduce the village's Privilege Parking program began. The program allows visitors to get a dollar off their movie tickets when paying $2 (after 5 p.m.) to park in one of the village's 16 lots. The system has worked well, Kidwell said, by addressing the perception that parking is a problem.

Meanwhile Century City and Santa Monica are rolling -- gaining attendance and siphoning business from Westwood.

Century City's AMC multiplex has had nights where all 14 screens were sold out. Performances of hot films are often sold out six hours in advance as movie-goers reserve seats via the telephone. The shopping center averages 13,000 cars a day, and 22 percent of the visitors are movie-goers, according to Christi Woodards, marketing director for the center.

The movie crowds have brought a night-time dimension to the center which it lacked before the theaters opened in 1987. The mall's overall sales have nearly doubled during that period, going from $125 million to $212 million.

AMC's Century City multiplex is vying with its Burbank facility as the top-volume multiplex within AMC nationally.

Key to the growth at Century City has been AMC's ability to get the break on first-run movies. The only major films AMC Century City didn't break this summer were "Far and Away" and "Alien 3," both of which went to the neighboring Cineplex Odeon Corp. in the ABC Entertainment Center.

Films such as "Sex Lies and Videotapes" debuted at Century City but now AMC has a combination of the big summer films as well as the smaller fall-winter fare.

Parking has been a problem for Century City theaters, but a new pre-pay system is being introduced Sept. 15 to diminish the gridlock that sometimes occurs in the underground lot. Thus far, security has not been a problem. Potentially violence-inducing films such as "New Jack City" have opened there without incident.

Meanwhile, in Santa Monica, the Third Street Promenade's theaters are less than two years old, but have already have been paying off for theater owners. AMC invested $8 million there while Odeon and Mann each plowed between $4 million and $5 million into their new theaters.

Summer crowds have been averaging 120,000 per week compared to 100,000 last year, according to Thomas Carroll, manager of the promenade. He estimated the three theater multiplexes will gross more than $10 million combined this year.

Carroll said Century City, not Westwood, is Santa Monica's competition.

The advent of Santa Monica and Century City as movie centers may have hurt Westwood, but it has been good for the overall film business, according to Tim Warner, president of the National Association of Theater Owners.

"Before Santa Monica and Century City, the west side of Los Angeles was under-screened," he said. "Since 1985 the market has expanded tremendously, probably by as much as three times."

"Those new screens have made the Westside one of the hottest areas in the country right now," Warner continued. "Westwood has felt (the intensified competition) the most, but those theaters' owners are not facing new construction costs and are still making money there."