Loews Cinema 4

The San Jacinto Mall had launched on March 4, 1981 with Cinemark’s six-screen theater opening on time that day. Months later, Cinemark announced it had acquired another lease for four more screens. It would be called the Cinema 10 (auditoriums 7-10). It launched April 30, 1982 with “Arthur”, “Deathtrap”, “Death Wish II” and “Chariots of Fire”.

Plitt Theatres had purchased the Cinemark circuit in 1980 and combined the operation of the theaters as the Plitt Baytown 10. In 1985, Cineplex Odeon took on Plitt Theatres and they reversed course with the venues becoming the Cinema Six and the Cinema Ten in 1987. Cineplex Odeon then superdowngraded the venue as a sub-run discount, dollar theater called the Plitt Four Theatres with the first-run venue renamed as the Baytown 6.

Cineplex Odeon sublet the Goose Creek Cinemas 6, the Plitt 4 and Baytown 6 multiplexes to Cineco, an independent from Dallas beginning on July 24, 1996. During the sublet, Loews and Cineplex Odeon would merge in 1997 effective 1998 leading to Loews Cineplex. Cineco changed the name of the venues to the San Jacinto 4 and the San Jacinto 6 - cleverly using the Mall’s name (after 15 years without) for clearer customer identification. But Cineco dropped the San Jacinto 4 and 6 at the end of January 1999.

As the main lease holders, Loews Cineplex exercised their leasing rights on both of those properties. They become the Loews Cinema 4 and the Loews Cinema 6 in February of 1999. Loews ended the Cinema 4 on October 10, 1999 with “The Sixth Sense”, “Dudley Do-Right”, “Stigmata”, and “For the Love of the Game”.

The San Jacinto Mall was now reaching its 20-year leasing expiries. It was time to re-invent. Loews appears to have left behind its six-screen multiplex on January 13, 2000. And the Mall decided to give its interior Mall concept one more 20-year shot. With megaplexes in style, the Mall contract with Premiere Cinemas to create a new 11-screen venue in the food court that would open in 2001. That concept would fail even prior to the COVID-19 with the Mall crashing into greyfield status and the Mall would be developed into a strip shopping center.

The former mall cinemas have been demolished.

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