14-Theater Center With ‘Giant’ Movie Screen Breaks Ground In Menifee

MENIFEE -- Imagine leaning back in a leather seat, sinking your teeth into a juicy burger ordered from a server and sipping a glass of wine, while simultaneously being thrilled by a film on one of the nation’s largest indoor movie screens.

You could be doing that in Menifee during the 2020 holiday season.

Construction has begun on a much-anticipated 13-acre, 155,000-square-foot entertainment center at Newport Road and Town Center Drive that promises to bring 14 theaters to a rapidly growing city of almost 100,000 residents.

But this center will be more than the city’s first movie house, said George Krikorian, CEO for Torrance-based Krikorian Premiere Theatres, which is building the project.

“What makes it special is, it’s not just a movie theater, it’s an entertainment complex,” Krikorian said. “The theaters are one component.”

And what a component it will be.

Krikorian said the largest of those 14 theaters will feature a screen 100 feet wide and 60 feet tall, and a second screen will be 70 feet across.

The 14 theaters will have a combined seating capacity of 1,800, he said, and there will be 500 seats alone in front of the monster screen. The latter will be so large that “you have to step back quite a ways,” he said.

“The color quality and the picture quality will be spectacular,” Krikorian said, adding that the sound system will be top of the line, too.