Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children got a taste of Hollywood on Friday when its new state-of-the-art movie facility opened with a screening of Shrek the Third. The theater is the brainchild of filmmaker and ad exec Barry Avrich (The Last Mogul), who raised $1 million for its construction in just 30 days.

‘I knew that if there was going to be a movie theater in a hospital, it had to be there,’ Avrich tells Playback Daily, adding that the thought came to him while he was walking through a hospital and saw a child struggling to play a movie on a small DVD player. ‘I just thought ‘This is wrong,” he says.

The first of its kind in North America, the 232-seat facility comes complete with a 35mm Christie projection system, Dolby surround sound, a 35-foot screen, a custom-built projection booth, and a library with thousands of DVDs. The entire first row is wheelchair accessible with outlets to plug in IVs, and movies can also be beamed throughout the hospital via closed-circuit television for patients unable to attend screenings in person.

Avrich says SickKids was able to get the latest Shrek movie with the help of Cineplex Entertainment president and CEO Ellis Jacob.

‘Ellis reached out to [DreamWorks CEO] Jeffrey Katzenberg, and he agreed as long as we didn’t really promote the fact that we were showing the film,’ he says.

In addition to movie screenings, the theater will also be used for educational purposes and connecting with physicians worldwide, according to SickKids Foundation president Michael O’Mahoney, who praises Avrich as a ‘wonderful friend’ of the hospital.

‘This room gives us the ability to have telemedicine meetings with physicians around the world… whether it’s teaching, diagnosing patients or collectively making recommendations for treatment,’ he says, adding that the hospital’s former auditorium was in bad shape.

‘It’s one of those things that can easily fall into disrepair at a place like SickKids, when we’re so focused on upgrading medical equipment and facilities,’ he says.

The Hollywood Theatre at SickKids, by JF Brennan Design Build, will also partner up with the Sprockets International Film Festival for Children, which will use the new venue when it returns in spring 2008.