Hollywood's oldest movie theater was the beginning of everything we associate with glitzy premieres. Now it's reopening, thanks to an unlikely partner: Netflix.
A hundred and one years ago, Hollywood rolled out the red carpet for the very first movie premiere. Men, dressed as Egyptian sentries, patrolled the roof of the theater, carrying rifles that were probably fake — but, given this was a Sid Grauman-staged event, you never know. Everybody who was anybody in L.A. attended, including“I pray you that we go on with the picture!” Chaplin said, practically running off the stage right after uttering those few words.
, a $2 million movie house that would feature temple bells, pagodas and other artifacts shipped in from China. The Chinese — with its forecourt of celebrity handprints and footprints fixed in concrete — remains one of Hollywood’s most popular tourist attractions.Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre opened in 1922 with the premiere of “Robin Hood.” It was Hollywood’s first red-carpet event.
Netflix bought the Egyptian from the Los Angeles film nonprofit American Cinematheque in 2020, giving the streamer a West Coast companion to Manhattan’s Paris Theater, the beloved midtown single-screen house it saved in 2019 . Indiewire pegged the purchase price at $14.4 million in a 2020 analysis of public record documents. Cinematheque Chairman Rick Nicita disputes that figure. A Netflix spokesperson declined to comment, citing company policy on discussing financial matters.
“Nonprofits are aptly named,” Nicita says. “The economics were changing and we realized we were going to have financial difficulties in maintaining the standards. The Egyptian is a wonderful movie palace, but it was deteriorating, as buildings do. To keep it at the level we wanted to keep it, we needed cash.”
The Egyptian Theatre’s forecourt has been restored to reflect how it looked when Douglas Fairbanks’ “Robin Hood” opened as Hollywood’s first red carpet premiere in 1922. The open space will, as it was back in Sid Grauman’s day, be sometimes be filled with props and exhibits from the showcased films.
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