Paver of Yellow Brick Roads

Ted

The new Casablanca auditoriuim

Hollywood Blvd Cinema
Photo Gallery Three

"How to Kill a Mockingbird" child star Mary Badham, the youngest person to be nominated for an Oscar. She was one of Blvd's earliest guests to host screenings and meet the public.

Bogart & Bacall's son Stephen hosted the grand opening weekend with screenings of Casablanca

UPGRADES Continued from page 1

"You have to rip out your old screen and put in what they call a 'silver screen,' he said. The screen is coated with a reflective silver and is curved "to maintain a specific focus." The film projector uses two lenses to create the effect, with the help of special glasses provided by the cinema and worn by each theatergoer.
Bulthaup said not every movie shown at Hollywood Boulevard or Hollywood Palms will be screened in 3-D, "just certain key pictures that are appropriate to the effect."
"Shrek Forever After," will mark the theater's first venture into 3-D, followed this summer with the opening of "Piranha." The appeal, Bulthaup said, is partly the novelty of a new approach but it's also something else. "In certain movies, it really does add to the experience," he said. "People are just flocking to it." Bulthaup said he expects the addition of 3-D will enhance an already thriving movie venue in Woodridge.
"We have the highest attendance, per seat, of any theater in the country," he said, adding that his theaters offer a different kind of movie-going experience. For starters, the theaters offer distinctive, themed auditoriums that each seat between 100 and 300 people. "Every auditorium has its own color scheme and its own decorative theme," he said. Moviegoers can purchase food and drink, including alcohol, either in the lobby or from the wait staff that serves tables placed in front of each row of auditorium seats. Auditorium seats at Hollywood Boulevard and Hollywood Palms are not standard fare, "We give them big, executive leather desk chairs," Bulthaup said, adding that the chairs recline, rock, allow for leg room and are outfitted with individual armrests. All of these amenities help pack the house, he said.
To accommodate those larger crowds plans call for tripling the size of the lobby, which will have a "glass conservatory" style look with a tenth additional auditorium attached.
Bulthaup also said a new, 120- seat Chinese restaurant called "Formosa Café on Hollywood Boulevard," named in honor of the original Formosa Café in Hollywood, California, will open beside the Woodridge theater complex. The original Formosa, Bulthaup said, has long been frequented by stars and movie industry people.
All of this expansion became possible after Bulthaup acquired five retail spaces adjacent to the existing complex. The Formosa’s build-out is the fifth expansion of the theater center since it opened in 2003.
The changes, Bulthaup said, will bring Hollywood Boulevard Cinema into the age of digital and 3-D technology with a flourish but, he said, the bedrock of a great movie experience is the same as it was back in the silent era. "The bottom line will always be about a good story well told," he said.

Through great Hollywood friends, Bulthaup was able to salvage and restore key exteror architectural elements from the most famous and historic theater in the nation, Grauman's Chinese Theater. Once called the "Crossroads of America", also famous for having the hands, footprints, and signatures of greatest fimmakers in the United States immortalized in cement in its forecourt , stands at the center of the World Famous Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Walk past the Witch

under the House

The Robert NudelmanHollywood Museum

A Night in Casablanca