Starlight Lakewood Center
5200 Faculty Avenue,
Lakewood,
CA
90712
5200 Faculty Avenue,
Lakewood,
CA
90712
5 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 31 comments
1999 grand opening ad in photos section
I visited this theater last week and it’s a shame how little they care about maintaining the main auditorium. There is a prominent chromatic aberration issue with the projector, and they’re not bothering to mask the screen for films with a 1.85 aspect ratio (the sound also sucks but I feel like it’s probably hard to fix that). With that being said, theaters 2-5 seem nice, with stadium seating and 1.85 screens
The theater re-opened on July 21st, 2023, and has been open since
Source: https://www.lakewoodcity.org/News/General-city-info-news-stories/Movie-theater-at-Lakewood-Center-is-now-open
2024 grand opening ads posted.
Indeed! please update this to open and update linkage
https://www.starlightcinemas.com/locations/g01vg-starlight-lakewood-center/
Theater is open again
1st movie i saw at Pacific Lakewood was Oliver & Company 1st PG movie i saw there was Star Trek V The Final Frontier 1st PG-13 movie I saw there was Batman 1st R Rated movie i saw there was Dead Presidents When it re-opened as Stadium 16 in 1999 the 1st i saw was Ravenous Last movie i saw there in Jan 2020 was Bad Boys For Life 2 MONTHS BEFORE THE PANDEMIC
Signage for the new operator is already up.
This theater will be reopening in Summer 2023 as the Starlight Lakewood Center (Starlight Cinemas).
Lakewood, CA: Starlight Lakewood Center Opening Soon, Now Hiring [Jun 27, 2023]
A chronology of the Gateway Cities’ 70mm presentation history has recently been published. Lakewood Center is mentioned numerous times.
The original 1200-seat screen remains one of the best movie screens in Southern California. And 4 of the “newly” added stadium-style screens are very nice as well. It’s the smaller screens they added that are completely abysmal. Who at the dawn of the 21st century builds a movie screen with an aisle down the center of the theatre?!?! Ridiculous. That said, if you can ever see a film on the original huge screen, it’s soooo worth it. Hopefully someone will rescue this location from its permanent closure.
An exact copy of this theatre opened in Tacoma, Washington on May 16th, 1968.
Had the world’s largest refreshment center per this grand opening ad below:
Lakewood Center was among just eleven theaters in the United States that installed the then-new Dolby Digital sound system for their engagement of “Batman Returns” which opened twenty-five years ago today. And here’s the link to a retrospective article that commemorates the occasion.
Grew up going to this theater..moved away from Long beach and came back and saw a movie there in late 1990’s early 2000 and was sad to see the main huge theater changed.It was so deep and large originally you could throw a football around in it..saw many of great films there..Star Trek Wrath of Khan,Back To Future 2 and 3,Star Trek 5,Indiana Jones Last Crusade,Creepshow 2,Batman,Honey I shrunk the Kids,Who Framed Roger Rabbit and many others.
1968, 1974 and 1999 grand opening ad as well as a fake DJI Phantom aerial (Google Earth used) in the photo section.
“The Rocketeer” was presented at Pacific’s Lakewood Center in 35mm Dolby Stereo beginning on Friday June 21, 1991.
The original theater #1 had to be the best movie theater in the Lakewood/Long Beach area.
The major expansion of the Lakewood Center Theatres into the current 16-screen megaplex was the work of theater designer Dave Tanizaki, with GFBA Architects. The same team designed at least one other theater project, the Edwards Metro Pointe Stadium 12 in Costa Mesa, California, opened in 1996. This page at GFBA’s web site features a couple of exterior of the redesigned building.
It was tobe a Cinerama house in the early days of planning. But the Roadshow and Cinerama days were about to end. So it became just a regular Pacific plex. Well the film “Battle of the Bulge” was produced by William Forman of the Pacific and Cinerama companies.
Yes, the original house was equipped for 70mm, but I don’t believe they played anything in 70 until their 1977-78 booking of “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.”
Only believe half of what you read in Wikipedia. It’s based on people’s personal factoids and not true facts. Nearly every post on there contradicts itself since it just compliles info from different sources.
About the theatre: 2 of the auditoriums at Lakewood Center have retained their original non-stadium, sloped floor configuration – the original “main auditorium” on the left hand side, and the 2nd large auditorium on the right. Both have had their seating decreased (to make room for the additions) but are still relatively decent in my book.
I attended a test screening of “Last Action Hero” in Lakewood and can, therefore, attest to it having taken place. If, in fact, a screening took place in Pasadena, as you are recalling, then we can conclude there must have been at least two screenings.
In the spring of ‘93, the Lakewood Center hosted the infamous sneak-preview test screening of “Last Action Hero” that prompted additional photography and-re-editing.
By the way, the Dallas sneak of “Jaws” (mentiond in the post above) was held at the Medallion, not the UA Cine 150.
On a Saturday night, in the spring of 1975, Steven Spielberg and Universal choose the Lakewood Center for the second sneak preview of JAWS for an audience. The first being the UA Cine 150 in Dallas the night before. The 1200 seat theatre was full long before the picture started at 8PM. I know because I was there. In all my years of going to sneak previews, I had never witnessed a audience reaction like what I saw that night. I had read the novel, so I was prepared, but the audience certainly wasn’t. It scared the hell out of everyone. People were jumping out of their seats and screaming in fear. But they loved it. A night to remember.