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For the nearby theatre known by the same name during the 1940s, see Avalon Hollywood.

El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood

The El Capitan Theatre is a fully restored movie palace at 6838 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles in the United States of America. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company.

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 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. After this period it began showing movies, and in 1941, Citizen Kane had its world premier here. The theater then closed for one year and, having been remodeled in the moderne style, reopened as the Hollywood Paramount Theater.

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 Theaters 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 purchased from the Pacific Circuit a major interest in the Paramount and in the smaller Crest Theatre in Westwood.[1] 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. 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.

Hollywood Masonic Temple, 1922

The former Hollywood Masonic Temple, adjacent to the theater on the west, has also been renovated by the Walt Disney Company, and is now the location of a television studio. Together with the theater, it is known as the El Capitan Entertainment Center. The ABC late-night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live tapes weeknights in the studio. The temple was designed by architect John C. Austin, also noted as a collaborating architect on the Shrine Auditorium and on Los Angeles City Hall, and as the lead architect of the Griffith Observatory. Like the adjacent theater, the Masonic Temple is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

• The El Capitan Theatre Official Website
• American Theatre Organ Society Renaissance of El Capitan Theatre - Hollywood, CA