In 2020, as the Egyptian approached its centennial birthday and after a defining and revitalizing two decades stewarded by the American Cinematheque beginning, Netflix launched into the next step in its campaign to preserve cinema history just a year after purchasing Manhattan’s jewel-box Paris Theatre, by buying the Egyptian from the American Cinematheque while continuing to partner with the organization in the theatre’s programming. “The Egyptian holds an important place in Hollywood history, but we wanted to ensure this restoration brought the theatre into the 21st century in terms of state-of-the-art picture and sound so that it could play host to more premieres and other special events for years to come,” says Sarandos of the theatre’s new era. “We believe the restoration is the perfect blend of old-world cinema and new-age technology. Obviously I’m excited to bring our new Netflix films from world-class talent like David Fincher, Bradley Cooper, and Zack Snyder to the Egyptian, but I’m also looking forward to seeing our partners at the American Cinematheque bring back old favorites like Lawrence of Arabia and Spartacus, and play new classics like Aliens and Scott Pilgrim in 70mm for sold-out crowds. So many of these films helped ignite the filmmakers we work with today, and who knows? Maybe one of these screenings will inspire the next generation of auteurs.” Together, these partners have put Grauman’s theatre back on the map as a destination for cinephiles the world over.

The investment in preserving motion picture history could not have come at a more timely moment. As COVID swept across the country in the spring of 2020, movie theatres — from single-screen art houses to big-chain multiplexes — went dark. Many would never reopen. The Egyptian could rest assured that it would not suffer the same grim fate. 

Now, the Egyptian stands as a glimmering exception, a theatre that came out of the pandemic better than when it started. With its grand reopening, the Egyptian has once again experienced a resurrection, a century after it became the glittering gold standard of movie exhibition. “The fact that it’s been able to continue to attract the top writers, directors, and stars throughout its 100-year run is truly a one-of-a-kind feat,” points out Sarandos. “You can look back as far as the first-ever movie premiere and as recently as the L.A. premiere of Roma in 2018 and see how the Egyptian has continued to hold an important and unique place in entertainment even as the industry itself has changed and evolved.” With a new renaissance for the Egyptian, the past — a past that was considered lost for good — is with us again, connecting us with cinema’s long and magical history. 

Eventually Grauman arrived in Los Angeles, and in 1917 opened his first L.A. movie palace downtown, aptly named the Million Dollar. Plans for his first Hollywood venue followed soon after. What started out as a $450,000 proposal for a Spanish-style theatre soon ballooned into $800,000 in final costs for a movie palace with an entirely different architecture: Grauman built the theatre in the Egyptian style, capitalizing on a search for King Tutankhamun’s tomb that had recently captured the public imagination. Meyer & Holler was brought on as the architecture firm, and their Milwaukee Building Company as contractors. 

The final product was a temple of cinema. It was also part of a longstanding and accelerating trend that fetishized meaningful architecture and imagery from Egypt. A month after the theatre opened, Tutankhamun’s tomb was unearthed, whipping public interest into a frenzy. 

During its first five years, Grauman’s Hollywood theatre ran history-making pictures, all with months-long engagements. Films included James Cruze’s The Covered Wagon (1923), the first big Western; DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1923), a visual feat and the highest-grossing movie of the year; The Thief of Bagdad (1924), with groundbreaking effects like the famous flying carpet; John Ford’s breakthrough hit The Iron Horse (1924); and Chaplin’s masterpiece The Gold Rush (1925). 

The forecourt displayed themed artifacts: elephant statues for The Thief of Baghdad, a real locomotive for The Iron Horse. Before every screening, there was an extravagant though often exoticizing prologue, and the number of people onstage frequently surpassed 100. For King Vidor’s great antiwar film The Big Parade (1925), the live show climaxed in an eye-catching “pageant of the Allies” with lavish costumes by influential Deco designer Erté — think flowing trains and dazzling headpieces. 

All the while, film technology advanced. The Black Pirate (1926) was the first major feature in two-tone Technicolor. It ran at the Egyptian alongside Pickford’s melodrama Sparrows; together they made a splash as the first double-feature premiere ever. By the middle of the decade, the films featuring sound were on their way via Vitaphone, a (doomed) sound-on-disc process notorious for synchronization problems. Don Juan (1926) was the first feature designed with synchronized music and sound (no dialogue yet), and the Egyptian was the first theatre on the West Coast to run the film with the new equipment.

As the Depression wore on in the 1930s and 40s, live prologues fell by the wayside. During World War II, the Egyptian was leased as a rerun house. Milk glass letters on the marquee spelled out titles like True Confession (1937) and In This Our Life (1942).

In 1944, the Egyptian was selected as MGM’s exclusive Hollywood showcase theatre and became a first-run destination for pictures including Dragon Seed (1944), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Duel in the Sun (1946), and Cass Timberlane (1947). Gregory Peck, Lionel Barrymore, Lana Turner, Mary Astor, Lillian Gish, Lucille Ball, and Judy Garland all walked the red carpet, and fans waited for hours in bleachers installed on either side of the entrance for a chance to glimpse them. 

By the end of the 1940s, Hollywood was struggling. Money was tight, the Cold War loomed, blacklisting had found its first targets, and TV was making its way into American homes. A federal decision ended monopoly studio control, and Fox was forced to give up the Egyptian. In 1949, it was taken over by United Artists Theatre Circuit and immediately renovated: A colossal concrete-and-neon façade now loomed over Hollywood Boulevard. 

The neighborhood began a gradual decline, but the Egyptian was revived as an extended-run road show venue. Additional renovations took place in 1955, making room for an enormous 70mm TODD-AO process screen, the second in the country after New York. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! christened it to great fanfare; the Oklahoma governor “officially annexed” the theatre as Sooner State territory for the duration of the run.

Other highlights from the period included Pal Joey (1957), Ben-Hur (1959), and My Fair Lady (1965) — the Los Angeles Times heralded the benefit premiere as “one of the largest turnouts of motion picture and TV personalities of the last decade,” and co-stars Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison looked dapper as they posed for photos. 

In 1968, a six-week round of renovations took a sledgehammer to Grauman’s theatre. The proscenium and stage were thrown out entirely, clearing space for an even bigger screen. The orchestra pit was filled with concrete, and the projection booth was moved to ground level. Funny Girl (1968) played when the Egyptian reopened. The benefit premiere welcomed Omar Sharif and Barbra Streisand, and Fanny Brice’s daughter threw an after-party in the parking lot next door, per the October 11 Los Angeles Times. It was the last of the extended-run road shows to be accompanied by such pomp.

The boulevard and the theatre had seen better days when Ridley Scott’s Alien opened to lines around the block in 1979, the Egyptian’s best-remembered moment of the 70s. The theatre had a few major long-run engagements in the 80s, but by 1992 it was a grindhouse. Tickets cost $1.50 — the same price as an evening screening back in 1922. The Egyptian closed that year, but Grauman had written prescient words about his theatre in the opening-night program for Robin Hood: “I trust it may prove the incentive to Hollywood that Hollywood has become to me; that the slow flowing of years may find its popularity keeping pace with the growth of this city . . . ”

Thankfully, the movie palace would soon open its doors again.

In 1996, the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles sold the Egyptian Theatre to the American Cinematheque for $1. It wasn’t quite the steal it appeared. In exchange, the city tasked the nonprofit organization with the massive project of renovating the palace to its former glory. The American Cinematheque, which was founded by Sydney Pollack, Gary Abrahams, and Gary Essert with the mission to build community through the celebration and curation of films, had begun presenting programming throughout L.A. in 1985. The Egyptian would give the American Cinematheque a permanent, storied home for screenings and events, but first it would require a significant commitment of care and money.

Although the Egyptian was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the theatre, built in 1922, was by that time more of a ruin than a living monument. Its former owner, United Artists, had significantly changed the original design before closing it in 1992. The city purchased the property a year later, but it continued to fall into disrepair. The building’s final, literal blow came with the Northridge earthquake in 1994, which caused so much damage that it left 20-by-40-foot holes in the theatre’s hollow clay walls.

The American Cinematheque set about fundraising, with donations coming from companies and individuals as well as the National Endowment for the Arts. Meanwhile, the architects Craig Hodgetts and Hsinming Fung, along with preservation architect Peyton Hall, got to work. The goal: to create a cutting-edge audio and visual center for the American Cinematheque’s programming while adhering as closely as possible to the Egyptian’s original 1922 appearance. “When I got behind all the changes that had been made, when you walk into that auditorium and see the Egyptian features, the low lighting, and the colors, it is an experience,” Hall remembers of his first impression. “That’s what it’s meant to be . . . the feeling that you are in a different time.”

Understanding that the audience’s involvement would begin with the entrance, the architects removed a looming, vertical marquee that had been added in 1949 and blocked views to the 150-foot courtyard and the building. Restorers repainted the faded and damaged hieroglyphics on the walls, and recreated a fountain based on a 1922 drawing. Landscape designers studied archival photographs to repopulate the forecourt with similar species of plants, diverging only with the addition of palm trees. Finally, the box office windows, which had been repurposed by United Artists as part of an interior concession stand, were opened back up to the exterior.

Inside, the challenge was to weave the theatre’s past into a modern film-going experience, creating, as the American Cinematheque’s board chairman Rick Nicita says, “a marriage of technology, history, and art.” Once designed to hold more than 1,700 people, the auditorium was reconfigured for 616 audience members with stadium-style seating and an added balcony. A smaller theatre with a capacity for 78, intended to show to filmmakers raw footage of motion pictures in production — also known as dailies — was built where the back of the orchestra section had once been, and named after Steven Spielberg. Two years and some $14 million after renovations began, the American Cinematheque welcomed audiences back to the palace, hosting a screening of Cecil B. DeMille’s 1923 silent epic The Ten Commandments, accompanied by a 60-piece live orchestra. It was 1998, 75 years to the date after the film’s premiere at the Egyptian.

The city, which hoped that the restored theatre would revitalize the neighborhood, immediately bore witness not only to the draw of the space, but also to the American Cinematheque’s use of it. Over the years, the American Cinematheque has presented events from screenings to premieres, retrospectives to tributes, conversations to concerts. In 2016, with a $350,000 grant from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the American Cinematheque installed a new projection booth that enabled the theatre to show not only 35mm and 70mm films, but also rare nitrate prints, making it one of only four venues in the country to do so. 

Central to the Egyptian’s vitality has been Grant Moninger, who has overseen thousands of evenings as the American Cinematheque’s director of film programming, alongside the team of passionate and dedicated programmers at the nonprofit. He has spearheaded robust and distinct cinematic offerings such as the popular Beyond Fest and NOIR CITY: Hollywood film festivals, and organized events as far ranging as a live rescoring of the martial arts film The 36th Chamber of Shaolin by Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA and a reunion of the Car Wash cast. And, of course, he has planned what will unspool onscreen. Queue spoke with him about his favorite moments at the theatre, what audiences love most, and why — as he says — “If you don’t know the Egyptian, you don’t know any theatres.”

An edited version of the conversation follows.

Queue: What’s the importance of the Egyptian to the American Cinematheque?

Grant Moninger: One of our missions is bridging film history with the future, so it’s a continued legacy from the first-ever movie premiere all the way through to the West Coast premiere of Parasite with Bong Joon-ho. We’ve been here for 20 years, so thousands upon thousands of people have come through. We’ve probably done 5,000 events here. 

What is it about the Egyptian specifically that enhances the audience’s experience?

GM: Film-going is a participatory sport and it’s infectious. It’s the drive to Hollywood, getting out of the car, coming in those big doors, the smell of popcorn. And you have no distractions. It’s so big, there’s so much history here, you can just fall into the spell of each film. 

What range of films do you try to provide at the Egyptian?

GM: If you’re a film lover in L.A., every month there should be something you want to see. It’s heavily curated. Some things skew to an older audience and some to a younger audience. We’re looking for a balance — all genres, and things that are both big and small. It should look like a tapestry of film.

What have been some of your favorite events at the theatre?

GM: It’s hard to tell a favorite. I enjoyed seeing 2001 [: A Space Odyssey] there, but I’ve also enjoyed seeing a small independent film. David Cronenberg came to Beyond Fest — that was great. Kim Novak hadn’t done an event for 20 years, [and she spoke at a tribute for her after the premiere of a restored version of Bell, Book, and Candle]. There was a standing ovation and she shared stories from 40, 50 years ago. We had John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis reunited onstage for Halloween. And we’ve had Steven Spielberg presenting Black Narcissus and Christopher Nolan coming for Rebecca, both shown in nitrate. These are films that won’t last much longer; some of them probably only have another 20 to 30 years in them. Nitrate films shrink, and you can only show ones with less shrinkage. They were also essentially taken off the market in 1951 because they can become very flammable. They’re the most beautiful prints in the world, in both black and white and in color, because they have this silver tint. Filmmakers come and they’re in awe, because this is something they can no longer shoot on or project.

What’s your favorite place in the theatre?

GM: In the back aisle, because I like to see the audience react.

And if you’re alone?

GM: I’d probably put myself right in the middle. 

The Egyptian Theatre’s journey has been an epic one, and the task of rebuilding this beautiful palace for a whole new generation of moviegoers has required ingenuity, ardent dedication, historical sensibility, and, above all, pure imagination. “It’s exciting for Netflix to be involved because it’s a place for us to continue to entertain people,” says Chairman of Netflix Films Scott Stuber. “We want to keep growing; we want to keep inspiring.” Thanks to a team of people — from architects to executives — the Egyptian, both as a building and a symbol of cinema, is once again able to do exactly what it was built to do: dazzle audiences with true movie magic. “It’s really important for the motion picture industry, but more selfishly for Los Angeles and Hollywood history, that we spot buildings like this and take care of them,” says Peyton Hall, the restoration architect. “Not only are they a part of our daily lives, but [they’re also] part of what makes our city and our motion picture industry interesting. If we don’t have this, we’ve lost an important part of our culture.”

Here, a few voices from the project share what the Egyptian — and the mission to repair it — has meant to them.

Peyton Hall, Egyptian Theatre’s restoration architect

We are saving buildings that we want to stand for another 100 years. Memories [and] events are embodied by the bricks and mortar, the stucco, the paint, the beautiful ceilings, the gold leaf. We want to retain and polish up those features, so that if Sid Grauman walked into the theatre today, he’d look around and say, “Well, that has changed over there, but yes, this is the Egyptian Theatre that I built in 1922.” There’s a very deep cultural, moral responsibility not to lose what makes the Egyptian important. 

Technology changes. Aspect ratios, projection, screen size — we have come a long way in 100 years from black-and-white motion picture images to what we have today in terms of sound, light, and digital technology. Along the way, changes were made, such as removing the plaster proscenium — the elaborate part that frames the screen — to accommodate much larger projection screens. We do want to keep a large screen because that’s our technology today, but we wanted to undo things like the addition of acoustical plaster panels that were glued to the sidewalls.

Now that we have surround sound, we need speakers, and we need an absorptive acoustic environment, not the lively, reverberant one you would find in the silent movie days where you could have hard plaster walls because your sound was coming from an organ or an orchestra. There are new ways of thinking and solving those problems with speakers that are hung in less intrusive spaces. 

L.E.D. lighting and lighting controls, discreetly located, have improved the way that you can experience the space in its rich colors and painted features. It’s very satisfying that you can have that historic ambiance and not be overwhelmed by the technology. Once you get beyond the foyer, the scarab is revealed, which is highlighted in gold leaf. That’s the original scarab in its original place. It’s almost this mystery that’s revealed, like going into a tomb. 

Rick Nicita, chairman of the American Cinematheque

The mission of the American Cinematheque is to further the enjoyment of movies in all their various ways of being shown. The Egyptian is one of the — if not the — premier movie palaces in the history of the business. It’s been a tourist-attraction landmark icon that I think people go to as a destination. [1994’s Northridge] earthquake was a major part of the history of the Egyptian, and it’s an unfortunate part, but that’s what led to renovations. 

Hollywood has been one of the prime exports from the U.S. — one of the main cultural influences in the world. To show, in the form of a building, where we’ve been, where we are, and where we can go is quite a confluence of things — the past, present, future. I think it’s an ideal cultural inspiration. 

What we have is a top-of-the-line, up-to-date, cutting-edge technology, but it blends with the beginnings [of film]: nitrate, 35mm, 70mm, the wide-screen Atmos sound, the best sound possible. It’s a marriage, at the Egyptian, of technology, history, and art. I took my younger son to see Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm, and he hadn’t seen it before. And he said, “That’s three hours long. Oh my God.” I said, “I’ll make you a deal. There’s an intermission, and you can leave [during] the intermission. I won’t hold it against you.” I turned to him at intermission [and asked], “Are you going to go?” He goes, “I’m staying.” That’s it. That’s what the Egyptian means to me.

Scott Stuber, chairman of Netflix Films

The Egyptian, to me, is the history of film in a lot of ways. I grew up out in the San Fernando Valley, so coming over the hill in the 80s, the Chinese Theatre, the Egyptian — they were these great historical places where you knew big premieres happened. As a young person, being able to see movies from the 50s and 60s and 70s that I didn’t experience the first time, to see them in that grand palace was incredible.

One of the things I love about movies: They’re generational. It’s like music. They define a moment in your life, and then when you hear or see them again, you remember them. And sometimes you see them differently. I’ve got three kids. And to go back and see the first Indiana Jones with them, it takes me back to my childhood. Harrison Ford, he’s Han Solo. He’s Indiana Jones. He’s right up there with the Beatles and Bruce Springsteen. It takes you back to what great movies do. They move you; they excite you; they thrill you.

How can we upgrade the Egyptian but also keep the vibe and historical value? The courtyard is a big part of that. There’s something magical about walking in off the boulevard and seeing that big courtyard and getting this feeling that you’re somewhere special. In terms of the great sound and presentation, people who love the cinema are going to be really happy. We talk a lot about IMAX, and that is a unique format that’s special and big, but 35mm nitrate is just as unique and special. To be one of only five theatres in the country that is able to still screen in that format is a great benefit to us and our filmmakers. 

Having had the opportunity to work with people like Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese and Jane Campion and Alfonso Cuarón and many, many others, one of the things they’re most excited about the Egyptian is this ability for them to help us to be curators of the past, to come in and show old movies and talk about them. For us, the Egyptian is an opportunity to do our big premieres and bring a whole new generation to see the great films of Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston, Agnès Varda. 

We’ve worked with the city of Hollywood, a lot of the local merchants, to bring this great facility back to life, to be this icon right in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard, to have tourists, and to really celebrate what Hollywood brings to the world: the magic of cinema.