Anaheim to Get 26-Screen Theater

It will be lights, projectors and plenty of action at the long-dormant Anaheim Drive-In Theatre, where a Los Angeles-based theater operator is planning to build a 26-screen, 5,500-seat cinema complex.

Pacific Theatres, owner of the drive-in that went dark in 1990, said Thursday that the 100,000-square-foot theater complex will open late in 1997 near the Lemon Street entrance to the Riverside Freeway. The company plans to add a number of shops and restaurants later.

Pacific’s announcement marked the latest in a string of cineplexes proposed by theater operators and developers who are fighting for Orange County residents’ time and money. The wave of proposed cineplexes was sparked by Newport Beach-based Edwards Theatres Circuits’ decision to build a 21-screen complex that opened last year at the Irvine Entertainment Center.

The massive Irvine cineplex, anchored by a 3-D sight-and-sound Imax theater, regularly ranks as one of the five busiest cineplexes in the country, according to Edwards Theatres founder and chairman, James Edwards Sr.

Already on the drawing boards in Orange County are a 30-screen theater complex at The City Mall, a vacant mall in Orange, and a 25-screen complex at the site of the Stadium Drive-In on Katella Avenue, also in Orange.

Edwards, which operates more than 450 screens at 90 locations throughout Southern California, has announced plans to build 160 more screens, including a 20-screen complex in Aliso Viejo and a theater in downtown Brea that would have 22 screens.

It’s uncertain whether all of the planned cineplexes announced by developers will be built, but Anaheim officials on Thursday maintained that the project in their city is going forward.

“We’ve been working on this for some time,” Anaheim City Manager James D. Ruth said. “It’s for real, and it’s a plus for the city.”

Pacific Theatres’ Anaheim project is part of a $100-million expansion planned by the company, said Chan Wood, executive vice president. Pacific also intends to build 26-screen theaters at the Winnetka Drive-In in the San Fernando Valley and at the Woodward Park Drive-In in Fresno. Pacific, Chan said, owns the land at the three drive-ins.

In keeping with an ongoing trend in the movie theater industry, Pacific’s planned cineplexes will feature state-of-the-art projection systems, digital stereo sound systems, unobstructed viewing from every seat and grand lobbies with massive snack bars.

Edwards argues that there’s still plenty of room in Southern California for megaplexes like the project planned for Anaheim.

“What’s happening is that as the new theaters come on line, the older theaters will begin to fade out,” Edwards said. “That’s only logical because the new theaters have updated seating, brand new projection and sound equipment and screens.”

It’s usually difficult to renovate older theaters because of technological and space constraints, Edwards said, so many older theaters will be converted to other forms of retail space.

Although the Anaheim Drive-In has been closed for years, Pacific’s announcement was a death sentence for its other two outdoor theaters. In the 1950s, there were more than 4,000 drive-ins nationwide. By 1994, that number had fallen to 859, according to statistics compiled by the National Assn. of Theater Owners.

Times staff writers Patrice Apodaca and Greg Hernandez contributed to this report.