Zac Efron poses with Kevin Von Erich on the red carpet at the world premiere of The Iron Claw. The A24-produced movie premiered at the Texas Theater in Oak Cliff on Wednesday, November 8.
Hollywood sweethearts Zac Efron and Jeremy Allen White can officially cross “visiting Oak Cliff” off their bucket lists after last Wednesday’s world premiere of The Iron Claw which was held at the Texas Theater.
As word of the star-studded event spread, many neighbors were left asking: “They’re in Oak Cliff Oak Cliff?”
So how exactly did the Texas Theater come to be the venue that hosted Dallas’s first world premiere in seven years? (The last world premiere was 13 Hours in 2016, and was held at AT&T Stadium.)
According to theater partners Ashton Campbell and Barak Epstein, the premiere was born out of a long-held relationship with A24, the movie’s production company, and A24’s desire to tell the Dallas story locally.
“It’s a Dallas story, and I think that the distribution team at A24 wanted to leverage the community aspect of the film, and have a premiere in the place where it were took place,” Campbell said.
The Iron Claw tells the story of the Von Erich family. The professional wrestlers from Denton made a name for themselves performing at the Dallas Sportatorium, only three miles north of the Texas Theater. Efron and White play Kevin and Kerry Von Erich, respectively.
While the film was shot in Louisiana, A24 executives told Campbell and Epstein it was a “no brainer” decision for the premiere to be held at the Texas Theater.
While the theater had never hosted a world premiere prior to last Wednesday, they had hosted regional premieres — many of which were for A24 movies — at the Oak Cliff Film Festival.
“A24 apparently kind of had this idea all along, once they realized they were going to premiere it, that they were going to use our place,” Epstein said. “It was pretty flattering to us that they wanted to be there that much, because we had never done something like this before, nor has Dallas really. So it was a big deal.”
A crew from Los Angeles was brought to Dallas to build a 40 foot long red carpet platform, and the event was attended by over 800 people. In addition to stars like Efron and White, the movie premiere was attended by Kevin Von Erich himself whose recent return to Dallas marks his first time back in the city in nearly 20 years.
Campbell described the experience of seeing Jefferson Boulevard shut down for the premiere as “surreal.”
“They were talking about doing a 25 foot red carpet. And then Chris, the head of the company was like, ‘No, let’s go with the 40 foot red carpet.’ And my eyes just lit up,” Campbell said. “It just sounded so huge.”
During the premiere, The Iron Claw was shown on the upstairs and downstairs screens simultaneously, and cast and crew made remarks to viewers from the front of the theaters before the movie. Writer and director Sean Durkin described it as “a dream” to show the movie in Dallas.
The movie tells the story of a Dallas past, and the historical lore associated with the Texas Theater added to the ambiance of the viewing, Epstein said.
“I think that anybody who really knew any of history of the Texas Theater, when they walked in, they just they kind of felt like they were watching a period piece movie. And they’re not walking into a new multiplex cinema, a brand spankin’ new place,” Epstein said. “They walked in and felt the ambiance of an older building and an older place that has Texas stuff everywhere. I think that just really added to everybody’s experience.”
The Iron Claw premieres worldwide and will be playing at the Texas Theater starting Dec. 22. (Maybe your butt can sit in the same seat Zac Efron’s butt sat in.)
As for future world premieres happening in our neighborhood, Campbell and Epstein said they’re “waiting for the phone calls.”
