New 'digital 3-D' format challenging Imax
When Warner Bros. released Robert Zemeckis' film "Polar Express" in 2004, anyone who wanted to see it in 3-D had to go to an Imax theater. Now Zemeckis' "Beowulf" is coming out. But this time, moviegoers can see it in 3-D not only at the 80 Imax theaters playing the film, but also at 650 standard movie theaters that will feature it in a new "digital 3-D."
This underscores some of the difficulties facing Imax Corp., the Canadian company with a franchise in large-format movies that offer stunning images exhibited on special 80-foot-high screens. Imax, with its 40-year head start on the competition, demonstrates how ahead-of-the-curve technologies can find themselves in danger of being leapfrogged when something new comes along.
In the case of 3-D films, many of the nation's 4,000 screens equipped with digital projectors can show those movies at a fraction of the cost of the Imax system, leaving the company struggling to stay on the cutting edge.
Imax, introduced in 1967, built its reputation in the 1970s as a feature at museums and nonprofit venues, and it is known for showing science and nature documentaries in both regular and 3-D formats. In recent years, Imax has mounted a drive to show major Hollywood films and has been trying to make its system more affordable to broaden its market.
One of Imax's hallmarks has been its crisp images on huge screens, achieved with special large-format film. The company has nearly 200 theaters in the U.S. and Canada and 80 in other countries.
Studios have released Hollywood movies in the Imax format here and there, most often paying for the film to be converted and then sharing a cut of ticket proceeds with Imax and the theaters. But up to now, most of the mainstream movies on Imax had come from Warner Bros. Lately, Imax has made inroads with other studios.
Richard Gelfond, Imax's co-chief executive, says Imax doesn't compete with standard theaters because a typical Imax visitor has already seen the movie in a regular moviehouse or doesn't go to standard movies at all. He says the immersive experience Imax offers is far superior to anything available in other theaters, even those that use 3-D.
But now film studios are helping finance digital projectors some believe are becoming Imax's competition -- making them essentially free for theater owners. In contrast, if a theater wants to install an Imax system, it ends up paying around $250,000. For its part, Imax pays for equipment totaling about $1.3 million.
Imax is taking a number of steps aimed at holding onto its franchise. Next year, it will begin rolling out its own digital technology. Using digital files instead of clunky film reels -- which in the case of Imax weigh 5,800 pounds each -- Imax theaters can quickly add another movie.
Digital technology will dramatically lower the cost of individual movie "prints" for both Imax and standard movies. Now, it costs studios around $30,000 to make a single print of an Imax movie or $1,000 for a regular film. With a lower cost for prints, Imax says its theaters, which generally run only one big studio title at a time, could show 10 Hollywood films a year instead of six or seven.
On the production side, the company has taken steps to improve the technology for filming scenes directly onto Imax, rather than converting them after a movie is made.
However, some in the industry aren't enthused about Imax. Universal Pictures hasn't released titles on the Imax format in several years. Its 2002 "Apollo 13" Imax release was "emotionally gratifying and financially disappointing," says producer Michael Rosenberg.
Moreover, while many of the company's traditional museum-based theaters are running Hollywood blockbusters, a large number see it as out of step with their educational missions. "It's a bit of a slippery slope to go down that way," says Joe DeAmicis, vice president of marketing for the California Science Center near Los Angeles, which sticks to offerings like "Deep Sea 3D."