The sun is peaking through the cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., in early April, and eclectic art and photography exhibits beseech would-be patrons along the Mall. But inside the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum at the Lockheed Martin IMAX theater is where all the tourists seem to be—both the 3 and 4 o’clock showings of Space Station 3D are sold out, and the queue is still thick with moviegoers. It’s happening all over the world. With 232 theaters in 32 countries, moviegoers can now have the IMAX experience. Last fall, a giant screen theater opened in Bratislava, Slovakia. In March, the first large-format movie premiered in Prague and a month later the first Russian IMAX theater came to Moscow. Within a year or so eight theaters will have opened in China. Giant screen films using IMAX technology are getting bigger than they’ve ever been before. Just two years ago, IMAX was in a financial freefall. Under the strain of millions of dollars of debt, the company’s stock plunged 70 percent in a single day after it announced less-than-expected earnings. Since then, the story of IMAX is one of striking a balance between documentary and mainstream commercial offerings and making it easy for multiplex venues to open large-format theaters. Having recently introduced two new technologies designed to mass-market giant screen films, the company is at a turning point. Setting the Stage To see a large-format movie is to step into an immense cinematic temple designed to completely engross you in a new projected reality. Massive moving images displayed on gigantic eight-story screens encompassing your entire field of vision tap directly into the imagination. Combine the visual overload with multi-speaker digital surround sound that makes sure every seat in the house gets just the right proportion of six-channel sound, and you’re ready to go wherever the movie takes you. Since it was founded in 1967, IMAX has been a pioneer in the field of large-format films. The company has developed most of the cameras, projectors, and processes associated with 15 perforated 70 mm (15/70) filmmaking. This format contains 10 times the image data of a standard 35 mm film. IMAX cameras have been to the top of Everest, to the bottom of the Pacific, and 250 miles above Earth. Each of these projects has one essential element in common—the ability to take audiences someplace they’ve dreamed of going, but wouldn’t otherwise have access to. About 30 minutes into Space Station 3D, during one of the space shuttle launches, debris blasts toward the audience in a cloud of dust. The combination of pitter-pattering sound and 3D imagery precisely places every flying particle in every person’s face, causing them to squint, duck, and shield their eyes. Later, when the astronauts and cosmonauts float around the space station and hover delicately outside, the audience knows that this is as close as they’re ever going to get to the stars. Larry O’Reilly, senior vice president of theater development and film distribution, says giant screen films create the ultimate illusions. “The biggest thing IMAX theaters offer audiences is the most immersive and highest-quality film experience in existence. Whether it is our projection system, sound system, or our full IMAX theater, the IMAX experience allows you to totally immerse your audience visually and audibly. It tricks your mind so that what you’re seeing becomes real.” O’Reilly says the new Disneyland California Adventure Park attraction, Soarin’ Over California, exemplifies this phenomena. Using IMAX projection technology along with the sensory elements of sound, smell, and motion, the attraction gives riders the experience of flying over California, from valleys of orange groves to the crashing surf of the Pacific. Riders’ feet dangle in the air as they “fly” over sights around California, tasting oranges and sea air and feeling the breeze on their faces. The Big Picture There are many independent companies that make large-format films and utilize IMAX technology. Many of the films shown in IMAX theaters have been produced and, in many cases, distributed by these companies. The biggest, MacGillivray Freeman Films, has been doing it for over 25 years. The production company has made 27 films including Everest, one of the most successful large-format films ever made. With each film it makes, MacGillivray Freeman seeks to give audiences an unforgettable experience. This sense of taking audiences someplace special is a fundamental part of a good giant screen film. Movies such as Jane Goodall’s Wild Chimpanzees, Space Station 3D, and Coral Reef Adventure transport audiences to a particular time in history, an incredibly vibrant ecosystem, or a faraway place. “When you’re seeing Mysteries in Egypt, you feel like you’ve gone to Egypt and gone in the pyramids and visited the tombs,” says O’Reilly. “If it’s one of our space films, you feel like you’ve been up to the space station. You feel like you’re up there with the astronauts, especially with Space Station 3D; you feel like you could just reach out and touch them.” Although many of the films’ locations are often exotic or unreachable for most people, the tone of most giant screen movies leans toward education, not mainstream commercial entertainment. Movies like Cosmic Voyage, Bugs!, and Darwin on the Galapagos are more suitable for the museums than the multiplexes. Greg Foster, president of IMAX filmed entertainment, says while those movies have built the IMAX brand, the company is trying to diversify its titles. “I think it’s really important that we move the barometer. The far, far left—and I don’t mean this politically—is education, and the far, far right is entertainment. In the past we have been very close to the left border and I would like to bridge the gap a little bit more.” Of the long list of new titles in development, NASCAR: The IMAX Experience 3D has the best chance of kicking the old barometer to the curb. IMAX is partnering with Warner Bros. to bring moviegoers behind the wheel and into the pits of real NASCAR action. As Foster sees it, “The difference between how NASCAR would have been made in the past is it would’ve been shot in 2D as opposed to 3D, and it would have been narrated by someone who is already from the NASCAR world. Our movie is being shot in 3D and will be narrated by someone who loves the NASCAR world but doesn’t come from the NASCAR world.” Going Hollywood Besides the usual suspects of education, documentary, and adventure films, the company is opening its doors to mainstream movies. With the help of its new digital remastering technology, called IMAX DMR, the company is hoping that Hollywood will finally come knocking on the giant screen door. The DMR process involves digitally remastering major studio event films into the larger 15/70 format. Last year’s proof of concept large format releases of Apollo 13 and Star Wars: Episode II were hugely successful examples of the potential of IMAX DMR. “Ron Howard said with Apollo 13 that he always wanted to make an IMAX movie and he realized he already had. We tested it and showed him that he had,” says Foster. The first stage of the DMR process involves taking the negative of 35-mm film and making it digital by scanning it. IMAX then slightly alters the aspect ratio and touches up the film, frame by frame, degraining and sharpening the edges of all the objects. The last stage of the process is filming it out to make a new large-format 15/70 print. The potential for IMAX DMR is huge. Beyond re-releasing Hollywood blockbusters that have already had a successful run, the ultimate goal of DMR is to create a new release vehicle that becomes standard for event films. This means an IMAX version of every blockbuster that comes out. When a movie like Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban debuts next year, for example, a giant screen version could be ready on the very same day—a concept called day and date release. Foster says, “We’re having conversations in one form or another with virtually every studio.” The conversations are going well—IMAX just announced giant screen releases of the two biggest movies coming out this year. Soon after it appears at your local multiplex on May 15, The Matrix: Reloaded will appear on the bigger screen, remastered through IMAX DMR. And on November 5, the highly anticipated third chapter of the Matrix trilogy, The Matrix: Revolutions, will be the first film concurrently released in 35 mm and 15/70 format. For IMAX and the giant screen industry this is a major coup. For a studio such as Warner Bros., which is handling the worldwide distribution of the two Matrix sequels, IMAX DMR is extremely beneficial: It gets to release and show its event films in the best possible format and differentiate itself from the competition. It even gets to charge extra money for the supersized version. According to a study done for IMAX by Rabin Research, consumers will be willing to pay a premium of between $3 and $4 for a day and date giant screen release. In fact, Attack of the Clones, which was a re-release, drew an average ticket price of more than $10, a significant premium to the national average for the 35-mm film of a little more than $6. Raising the Roof Despite the potential payback of showing large-format movies, for many theater owners the initial costs for a giant screen are just too great—from $5-10 million to build one from the ground up. From eight story screens to highly precise projectors, stadium seating to proportional point source loudspeaker systems, buying into the IMAX experience doesn’t come cheap. But another recently released innovation known as IMAX MPX offers existing multiplexes a lower entrance fee into the world of large-format theaters. MPX even has the ability to retrofit two existing multiplex auditoriums into a single giant screen theater. O’Reilly believes the new system will convince many more theater owners to go large. “The new MPX theater will utilize a whole new projection and sound system, which is even more automated, and we’ve also changed the aspect ratio of the screen,” O’Reilly says. “By doing that we changed the geometry of the theater and were able to reduce the capital cost down to approximately $3.25 million.” MPX is the culmination of 30 years of theater innovation and a constant effort to make large-format movies more affordable and therefore marketable. With a lighter projector and new sound systems as well as slightly shorter screens, MPX is specifically designed for the multiplex. O’Reilly says the different aspect ratio makes MPX theaters ideal for DMR releases and it is still suitable for traditional giant screen films. For IMAX, the big hurdle in its effort to globalize has been getting local companies to pony up for a new theater and the equipment to run it. MPX allows more theaters in multiplex locations the opportunity to buy in. Foster says profitability is inevitable. “If you’re a theater, you get to differentiate your theater from the one down the block. You get to maybe charge a little bit more and you get to cherry pick event films. So it’s pretty much a win-win for everyone and it’s a great way to generate repeat business,” he says. When it comes to expanding into a new market, IMAX has found that the soft approach works best. It licenses its technology and its brand, shares best practices in like markets, and equips its new partners with successful IMAX films. According to Larry O’Reilly, the local exhibitor is responsible for communicating what the IMAX brand is all about. “For example we have a company based out of Israel called IT International, which opened three theaters in Poland and also opened the theater in the Czech Republic recently.” IT International worked for several months on a campaign to bring IMAX to the marketplace. The company decided to redo the entire campaign after attending an IMAX marketing workshop. When it launched, the tag line was, “IMAX takes you to a place you wouldn’t normally get to go.” Big Dreams With a game plan that focuses on more mainstream fare, day and date releases of Hollywood movies, and growing its theater network, IMAX is a company that is very focused on the mass appeal of large format films. For Foster, the equation is simple. “IMAX needs to sustain business among the single largest moviegoing audience that exists, which is 15- to 30-year-olds. Our customer life cycle was: big fan until they’re 13 or 14, we don’t see them again until they become an aunt, uncle, or parent between 25 and 30, and they come back to us from 30 and on. We missed that sweet spot of 15 to 30, but now we’re not. [Through IMAX DMR] we can give them Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter or Star Wars or Apollo 13.” With tools in place to get multiplexes and major studios into the giant screen experience, IMAX is gearing up for a major explosion. If all goes well, a continuous stream of large-format Hollywood films such as The Matrix: Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolutions will arrive in more and more local theaters in the next few years. By then IMAX will finally be ready for its close-up.
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