Empire Granville 7 Cinemas
855 Granville Street,
Vancouver,
BC
V6Z 1K7
855 Granville Street,
Vancouver,
BC
V6Z 1K7
4 people
favorited this theater
This is the last bastion of glory on Vancouver’s Theatre Row. In the 1940’s and 1950’s, there were a minimum of 20 movie theatres along several blocks of Granville Street. Now, in 2007, there is only one left. It is appropriately named the Granville. It was Cineplex Odeon’s mid-1980’s seven screen showpiece that was built to replace the Coronet Twin and the Odeon. (The latter is now the Plaza nightclub.)
In 2006 it became a discount theatre. It shows second run films and artsy/obscure fare. It is still a very beautiful theatre and well worth a trip downtown.
Contributed by
Loralei
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Recent comments (view all 15 comments)
The existing facade was part of a major remodel on the Paradise Theater reflecting an Art Deco design when the owners took over the Globe Theater. You will notice on the photo that the original design was much more simpler:
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Cinemas 5 & 6 are from the old Coronet house. And yes, they were HEAVILY renovated as these two are the smallest in the complex. From what I have been told, the Coronet was a much larger theater, but during the Cineplex Odeon renovations they needed proper exiting from the top level #7 (the largest former THX house, at 664 seats) which cut drastically into the back of what is now the #5 cinema. If you look very closely in #6 you can still see some of the old Coronet details, even though they have been painted over.
This cinema is the main venue for the annual Vancouver International Film Festival and has far more seats than Scotiabank or Tinseltown. Every year I visit and photograph the heck out of this theater (many of the Cinematour photos Tim refers to are from my old digital camera!) and it is still a fun place to see a movie. Empire Theaters took over for Cineplex Odeon in 2005, yet you set foot in the building and NOTHING has changed. Same typical late 80’s Cineplex Odeon build. It’s a bit run-down, and many of the screens Dolby SR only. With that said, the Empire staff this year were incredible; very friendly and down to earth, but also hard workers.
It is also NOT a second run house. It charges $7.99 for a film and runs art house, smaller product along with mainstream product that the nearby Scotiabank and Tinseltown have stopped running, but it is still under first run policy.
Just to add to the details on the building itself, The Old Palms Motel made up for the rest of the space for the complex.
Also, Granville 7, while having apparently two 70MM screens ( #7 for sure and #2 apparently was equipped for 70 at some point { Both THX as well } ) only ran 10 or less 70MM engagements starting with Die Hard in 1988 and ending with Geronimo ( sp? ) in 1994.
2 certainly did have 70mm capability at one point and might have acted as a move-over from, but most of the action was in #7 which still has the THX “wall” and all outstanding sound quality, just not actual certification anymore.
According to Bill Kretzel’s Cinerama and Large-Frame Motion Picture Exhibition in Canada, the 70mm bookings at GRANVILLE were:
DIE HARD (1988)
THE BIG BLUE (1988)
THE ABYSS (1989)
EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (1990)
BACKDRAFT (1991, moveover booking)
APOCALYPSE NOW (1992 re-issue)
FAR AND AWAY (1992)
HOFFA (1992)
HOWARDS END (1993 moveover booking)
GERONIMO: AN AMERICAN LEGEND (1993)
Note that DIE HARD and THE BIG BLUE were in release at the same time, confirming that two separate screens in the complex were equipped to handle 70mm presentation.
Die Hard and The Big Blue were released a month apart, they might not have been at Granville at the same time.
Michael is still right, two screens were equiped for 70mm presentation. The projectors for auditoriums 2 and 7 are the original Victoria 8’s by Cinemeccanica from the building’s opening and still have sprockets and rollers that can accomodate both 70mm and 35mm film, but not enough equipment to play 70mm today.
Cineplex built Granville over three properties: the Palms Hotel as the south end, the Coronet Theatre as the north end, and miscellaneous store x that was in between.
The Palms Hotel is interesting in its own right as it was originally built in the early 20th century, then called ‘Almond Block’. The facade is currently protected as heritage. The relief on the north facade (dubbed “The Dancer”, from the days of the Paradise Theatre) is considered heritage, but has no protection and can be demolished.
The only equipment I’m aware of that is missing is the Magnetic penthouses from the Vic 8s. Why they were removed? I don’t know. The projectors do not have turrets installed on them, which is a common modification to do to these projectors, in which the magnetic heads have to be removed for real estate reasons.
2404 seats, with the breakdown – from auditorium #1 through #7 – as follows: 294/338/329/324/225/230/664.
I visited Vancouver in 1996 and saw The Cable Guy at the Granville. A nice memory.