This San Francisco theater was holy ground for ‘Star Wars' fans. Then the wrecking balls came

When San Francisco Chronicle readers got their first look at "Star Wars" in 1977, the single paragraph was as inaccurate as it was dismissive.

Nobody thought the movie was going to succeed, including an unnamed Chronicle features writer, who called Darth Vader a "metallic creature" who will "employ his extrasensory powers" to save the galaxy. "The film - which will undoubtedly clarify the preceding sentence - will have a special benefit premiere tomorrow at the Coronet Theatre," the writer continued.

That was the start of a 50-year film franchise that changed Hollywood, and the beginning of a moment for the mighty Coronet, perhaps the greatest big-event movie theater in Bay Area history. "Star Wars" would play for 29 hype-filled weeks at the Geary Boulevard cinema, which had the exclusive engagement in San Francisco, launching a million formative moviegoer memories.

The theater was demolished almost 20 years ago, but memories return with every big blockbuster, especially ones starring Wookiees and baby Yodas. Can "The Mandalorian and Grogu," out next weekend, even exist if we can't see it in the Coronet?

The Lone Mountain theater was a latecomer, built in 1949 a full generation after the Castro and ultra-luxury Fox Theatre on Market Street. Those movie houses had big-name architects and ornate lobbies, but sketchy sound and small screens compared to the number of seats. The Coronet, by contrast, was a giant box that spared no expense on projection and audio.

"The utmost in theater comfort will be unveiled this evening when the Coronet, San Francisco's newest movie house - and first of major importance to be built in 15 years - will open its doors at Geary Boulevard near Arguello Boulevard" with the Howard Hawks film "I Was a Male War Bride," the Chronicle reported.

The Coronet's opening was well-timed, coinciding with the rise of bold visual filmmakers including John Huston and David Lean. "Ben Hur" opened in 1959 and played at the Coronet for 75 weeks. Other blockbusters followed. In 1976 it was the first San Francisco theater to install Dolby Stereo.

"The two best sound systems in the city were the Northpoint and the Coronet," Gary Meyer, who booked the Coronet, told me in 2013. "It showed 70mm. If you were a filmmaker and you knew the theaters of the city - if you were George Lucas or Francis Coppola - those were the theaters you wanted to screen your film in."

When it was time to book "Star Wars," 20th Century Fox had lost hope in the movie, instead pushing "The Other Side of Midnight," a dull romance based on a Sidney Sheldon novel.

Meyer, who had seen grassroots excitement for Lucas' film at science fiction conventions, bucked the studio, moved "Midnight" to the smaller Alexandria, and kept "Star Wars" at the Coronet, one of just 32 theaters in the nation opening the film. It was an immediate sensation, with sold out screenings day and night.

"Our neighborhood had just transformed," Beth MacLean, a sixth grader in 1977 who lived a block away, told me in 2013. "At times they would have the ticket buyer line on one side, and the ticket holder line on the other side, and they would get so long that they would meet in the back by Rossi Park."

"I've never seen anything like it," theater manager Al Levin told the Chronicle in 1977. "We're getting all kinds. Old people, young people, children, Hare Krishna groups. … People loaded on grass and LSD. At least one guy's been here every day. It's an audience participation film. They hiss at the villain, they scream and holler at everything else. When school gets out, the kids'll go crazy."

The Chronicle stoked the hype, coming out with a "Star Wars" story every few days, about a couple who had seen the film 41 times, and the angry owner of a gas station near the Coronet whose business dropped because lines blocked his driveways. When the "Star Wars" run ended in December 1977, it was replaced by another perfect Coronet film: "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

I saw "Star Wars" on the Peninsula, but the legend of the Coronet found its way to Burlingame. I made multiple pilgrimages once I was old enough to travel on my own, including a 1988 summer screening of "Die Hard" that remains among the greatest filmgoing experiences of my lifetime.

With the lights on the interior of the Coronet was no more thrilling than the inside of a Best Buy. But when the trailers started playing, it was a transportive space.

While the slightly curved screen was huge, the sound was the real draw. At a time when many older theaters had fading audio systems that made it sound like John Williams was conducting his symphonic score from inside a trash dumpster, the Coronet's hidden speakers were better than any home stereo system. When John McClane jumped off the exploding Nakatomi Plaza skyscraper, you felt a rumbling that started on the Coronet floor and shook your kidneys.

I think the location had a lot to do with the magic. For many customers, the Coronet was a long journey, involving BART and the 38 Geary bus. When the movie was over, there was nothing to do nearby. It often made the most sense to just buy another ticket and watch "Return of the Jedi" one more time.

After a decade away from the Bay Area for college and my first jobs, I moved back to San Francisco in 1999, living at my aunt's Jordan Park home, where the theater was visible from the sidewalk. But it was a ghost town, more than two months into a summer-long run of "The Phantom Menace." I went to the theater once that year, and was one of about 20 people in the depressingly cavernous space.

The next year the landowners announced that they were selling to the Goldman Institute on Aging. The theater closed in 2005 after screening "Million Dollar Baby," and was demolished in 2007. I see elderly residents milling about when I drive by now and wonder, "Did they see ‘Star Wars' here too?"

I was in denial when the theater closed, and didn't go to a last screening. I see my 2026 blockbusters at the Grand Lake and Alameda theaters. But I cherish the memory of the Coronet now for the venue as much as the movies - like seeing Van Halen at the Cow Palace or the 49ers at Candlestick Park.

At the Coronet we were transported to ancient Rome, inside a spaceship or on the distant planet Tatooine. And it always felt like San Francisco to the core.

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