Big One Flubs a Line, but Show Goes On : Premiere: Last-minute work delays start of two movies, but audience at Edwards complex in Irvine doesn’t mind.

Ready or not--and in some cases not--the Big One flung open its doors Wednesday, even before fire inspectors had given the OK for two of the 21 theaters planned in the massive complex to open, delaying those movies for hours.

“The existing [safety] system was not finished before they called people into the theaters,” said Orange County Fire Safety Specialist Stephen Cobb, who directed a daylong inspection of the 19 theaters currently open.

About 300 people who went to the Edwards Cinemas Inc. complex on opening night to watch “GoldenEye” and “Casino,” scheduled to begin at 5:15 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., waited more than two hours while handrails were installed at the emergency exits, as required by code. For their patience, management gave them free movie passes.

The missing handrails were the biggest of several glitches at the debut of the complex, touted by Edwards as the largest in the world.

Shortly before 5 p.m., the doors opened even as paint-splattered workers scrambled with finishing touches, screwing plastic cup holders onto seats, installing marble tiles and gluing steel siding onto a carpeted staircase.

Few movie-goers seemed to mind the last-minute adjustments, however, nor even the dental office-like sound of buzz saws. They wanted to be among the first inside the complex.

Patty Knill of Mission Viejo, standing at the end of a 300-person line, had hoped that “everyone would be home cooking turkey. I really wanted to be one of the first to come to this complex. . . . “

“This is fantastic,” said Bob Rivas of Tustin. “We have our two grandkids with us and they can say they were here when it opened up.”

Nineteen screens were showing 11 different movies. One theater remained closed entirely because the chairs hadn’t been delivered. The 21st screen, to open in January, will be the West Coast’s first 3-D IMAX theater.

The $27-million theater--decorated with large murals that recall grand movie palaces of the 1920s and ‘30s, bright neon piping, brass and marble--is the centerpiece of the likewise brand new Irvine Entertainment Center at the Spectrum. That $50-million Irvine Co. project, on 32 acres at the intersection of the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways, also includes restaurants, a virtual-reality game center, a bookstore and a coffeehouse.

Irvine Co. and city officials project that the center will generate up to $500,000 annually for local government, which put a big smile on Irvine Mayor Michael Ward’s face during a noon news conference Wednesday.

“Irvine has become the entertainment center of Orange County, if not Southern California,” Ward told looky-loos who came to check things out hours before projectionists set “Toy Story,” “Casino” or “GoldenEye” in motion.

Paul Branstine, a Lake Forest maintenance worker who had the day off, had read that James Edwards Sr., the chain’s founder, scheduled the theater’s opening for the day before his 89th birthday.

“You can see they’re not done, the marble’s not up,” Branstine said. “But they wanted to get it open for his birthday. Can’t blame ‘em for that.”