California Club Theater

If I'm mistaken this was a early Muvico site that was sold off when the company started to focus on megaplexes like Point Orlando. Over at Muvico.com they claim that the California Club garnered national attention for its stadium seating, THX sound, and expanded concession menu, it also informs that the site opened in 1988.

Currently operated by Ocean Cinemas, (Le Jeune Cinemas 6), this was a Regal Theatre from 1995-1999.

When it originally opened it was a Muvico novelty building featuring a recently crashed rocketship sticking out of the lobby roof, complete with smoke coming from it. It was impossible to drive by and not stare.

By the way, the city is North Miami and the zip code is 33179.

I don't think the Le Jeune Cinema 6 is listed on here. This is the website for the California Club 6.

I just submitted the Le Jeune tonight, LM.

Hey AA wasn't the California Club a dollar theatre for awhile?

I am not sure Maria but it would make sense with all the competition in the area.

I think the Hernandez who owns this may be the same guy behind National Cinemas who ran a number theatres in Miami in the eighties and nineties including the Ambassador, Atlas, America, Garden, Movies of Kendall and Regency.

I think I went there once. It was a dollar theatre in the North Miami area in a mall.

In its original Muvico days, a plaque in the California Club's lobby explained the theater was a spaceship from the future that fell into a time warp (or the like, don't remember the exact phrasing), and conveniently crash landed without destroying the K-Mart or Winn-Dixie in the same shopping center at the time. A burst of imagination when most new multiplexes were bland boxes, and CC's location near the Dade/Broward line lured frequent visitors from points north and south (especially when a new Star Trek sequel opened).

Its original seating had the look of chairs installed during one of the Starship Enterprise's refurbs; speakers were set up right at the screen surfaces (or lit for such effect), adding to the extraterrestrial ambience. Appropriate for the first film I saw there, Cronenberg's "The Fly."

Heard there was a nicely appointed screening room apart from the six main auditoriums, never saw it for myself. One auditorium was set up with stadium seating years before the megaplex phenom hit the U.S.

This is a 1991 ad for Star Trek VI.

Sad to hear about the California Club's imminent closing. It was certainly a test lab for many of the creature comforts now expected of megaplexes. Add it to the ever-lengthening list of South Florida cinemas not surviving past a couple decades.

(And the Ocean Cinemas link has expired)