Laemmle’s Claremont 5, the only movie theater in the Inland Empire that regularly screens independent and foreign films, is about to reach “the end.”

The five-screen theater downtown, which plays a mix of specialty films and mainstream fare , has been sold to Regency Theatres, with the sale closing Nov. 19.

“It wasn’t on the market,” Greg Laemmle, the family-owned chain’s CEO and president, tells me Tuesday. “This came out of left field.”

It’s no secret the Claremont 5 has been struggling since the pandemic as patrons, who skew older, failed to return in sufficient numbers. The theater had a buyer in 2021 , but escrow was canceled. Laemmle in 2023 challenged Claremont to show up if people wanted the prestige theater to stick around.

Ticket sales saw only “small improvement,” Laem

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