El Capitan Theater (Los Angeles, California)

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6838 Hollywood Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90028
(323) 467-9545
www.elcapitantickets.com

The El Capitan Theatre is a fully restored movie palace owned by Pacific Theaters and operated by The Walt Disney Company. It serves as the venue for many of Walt Disney Pictures' movie premieres.

When the theater opened in 1926 as "Hollywood's First Home of Spoken Drama," it featured a Spanish colonial exterior designed by Stiles O. Clements of the architectural firm of Morgan, Walls and Clements, and a lavish East Indian interior by theatre designer G. Albert Lansburgh. For a decade it presented live plays, with over 120 productions by 1936. By the late 1930s, the El Capitan felt the economic effects of the Depression, showcasing fewer and fewer productions. This period saw a cycle of experimentation with entertainment. In an effort to boost attendance to the theatre, its management attempted to lure revues, road shows and benefits. Despite these efforts, business was faltering. When Orson Welles was unable to locate a theatre owner willing to risk screening Citizen Kane, he turned to the El Capitan, and in 1941, Citizen Kane had its world premiere there. The theater then closed for one year and, having been remodeled in the modern style, reopened on March 18, 1942 as the Hollywood Paramount Theater. Its inaugural film presentation was Cecil B. DeMille's Technicolor feature Reap the Wild Wind, starring Ray Milland, John Wayne, Paulette Goddard and Raymond Massey.

The theater remained the west coast flagship for Paramount Pictures until the studio was forced by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the antitrust case U.S. vs. Paramount Pictures, et al. to divest itself of its theater holdings. After this, the Hollywood Paramount was operated by United Paramount Theatres for some years, then by a series of other companies, culminating with ownership by the Pacific Theatres Circuit in the 1980s.

By the late 1980s, movie studios were once again being allowed to own theaters and in 1989 the Walt Disney Company entered into a lease agreement with the Pacific Circuit for the Paramount and in the smaller Crest Theatre in Westwood. These theaters became the Disney company's flagship houses. They spent $14 million on a complete renovation of the Paramount, restoring much of the building's original decor as well as the theater's original name. The El Capitan reopened in 1991 with the premiere of The Rocketeer. In recent years, many of Disney's feature films have premiered here, accompanied by live stage shows.

The refurbished theater features a giant Wurlitzer Theatre organ originally installed in San Francisco's Fox Theatre. Below the theater is a small exhibit space, often used to display props from the films, such as costumes or set pieces. Next door is the adjacent Disney's Soda Fountain and Studio Store, where patrons can purchase ice cream themed to the film currently playing in the cinema next door. A wide variety of Disney and movie merchandise is available there.