History

Opened in 1910 as the Regent, the single screen theater on Fillmore St, now known as The Clay Theater is perhaps the oldest theater in San Francisco. In 1972, the theater screened San Francisco's first "midnight" movie, Pink Flamingos directed by John Waters and in 1985, the Clay Theatre on Fillmore hosted the premiere of the spaghetti western parody Lust in the Dust, which later became a classic and starred Tab Hunter, Divine and Cesar Romero.  

In 1991, Landmark Theaters took over Clay and ran the theater, showing many indie films produces by studios such as Miramax and Orion Classics until being purchased from The Cohen Media group in 2018.

As large corporate conglomerate theaters have grown in popularity and rents have skyrocketed, business like single screen theaters have been pushed out.  Since then, the Clay has been a money losing business and much of us know it as that obscure theater on the corner that only shows The Room and Rocky Horror Picture Show over and over again.  

What everyone can agree on when they walk by is it's major potential. As the city rapidly changes and sees the closure of historic single-screen movie houses being converted into gymnasiums, we believe it is vital to do everything in our power to keep this cultural icon and educational resource alive.   To be a cultural pillar of San Francisco and Fillmore St.  Historic San Francisco Neighborhood.  

Like Supervisor Catherine Stefani, we too believe that "if the place were spruced up and a new operator were  brought in to liven up the programming, it could succeed."