Shochiku Central Theater

The Shochiku Central Theater opened its doors on September 15, 1956 with Spencer Tracy in “The Mountain” as a 1,156-seat single-screener. This was also the former flagship movie theater for the Shochiku chain until the October 1984 opening of the Marunouchi Piccadilly.

A little known fact about the auditorium is that the stage curtain featured a painting of Yamashita Kiyoshi’s “Fireworks at Ryogoku”, as well as Taro Okamoto’s mural “Seishun” on display in the entrance lobby. The Central Theater was also once a Cinerama theater.

Some notable films the Shochiku Central Theater screened over the years include “The Sting”, “The Towering Inferno”, “Jaws”, “Superman”, “Blade Runner”, “E.T.”, “Gremlins”, and “The Goonies” among others. On October 3, 1987, the Shochiku Central Theater switched its movie formats from Shochiku to Toei due to the opening of the third screen at the Marunouchi Piccadilly, and in December 1988, the nearby Ginza Shochiku Theater and the Ginza Roxy Theater became the adjacent to the Central Theater by renaming their auditoriums Centrals 1, 2, and 3. Screen 1 retained as a 1,156-seat single-screener, while Screens 2 and 3 house 417 and 185 seats.

However, due to the restructuring of Shochiku in January 1998 following the retirements of President Toru Okuyama and Director Kazuyoshi Okuyama and the relocation of Shochiku’s headquarters to the Togeki Building, all three of its auditoriums closed for the final time on February 11, 1999 with “Rush Hour” in the main Central Theater auditorium. The two small auditoriums closed with the Indian film “Muthu” in Screen 2 and the Japanese film “24 Eyes” in Screen 3. The building was immediately demolished and the Ginza Shochiku Square building was built on its site which opened in October 2002.

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