When it debuts in mid-2019, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will be a star attraction for film buffs visiting Los Angeles.
The museum will take an encyclopedic look at motion-picture history, including displays and artifacts that detail the technology that makes movies possible, the process of taking an idea from script to screen, and the forms cinema takes around the world. Its exhibit halls will feature objects from the collection of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which comprises 12 million photographs, 190,000 film and video assets, 104,000 pieces of production art, and thousands of posters and screenplays.
The academy also maintains special collections devoted to the careers of Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and Alfred Hitchcock. Notable artifacts in the larger collections include tablets from “The Ten Commandments,” a spaceship model from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and puppet faces from “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
The museum will open in a 300,000-square-foot space that combines an overhauled, 1930s department store with a contemporary addition designed by architect Renzo Piano—who also designed the new Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
“As for opening events, the museum will indeed have a robust schedule of programming when it debuts,” says Stephanie Sykes, associate director of public relations for the attraction. But as with any summer blockbuster, film fans will have to wait for more details as opening day nears.
To learn more about the museum, email Rowena Adalid, director of sales, or visit academymuseum.org.
Top photo by Joshua White, JWPictures/©A.M.P.A.S.
