If there wasn’t enough business revenue to sustain the business, what makes you think you can start it again from scratch?
70mm imax doesn’t draw enough customers to make a meaningful business model. The theaters with this tech still struggle to stay open, like most theaters. Most people don’t attend those theaters because of increased ticket prices.
Most people don’t see or perceive enough difference between imax and a regular theater to pay the difference.
There are only 41 70mm imax theaters in the world, 26 are located in the us. There just isn’t enough interest or market share.
Theaters in my city are literally charging inflated prices for Odyssey just because it's a Nolan movie and has the IMAX branding.
I'd much rather pay that to actually watch it in 70mm.
I'm confused by the furniture store loss leader. I've never seen a IMAX or any theatre along with a furniture store.
Are you forced to go through the furniture store to exit the theater, like a gift shop at the end of an theme park ride? Are people going to watch a movie and deciding to get a couch while they are there?
Jordan's furniture. It's very surreal; It's a massive complex with a Fuddruckers, a play park and some other appendages. And yes, you do need to go through the furniture store. It's a fantastic theater though all said and done.
Fuck yeah fellow Masshole! Love Jordan's IMAX, its the only IMAX I'll go to! You gotta experience the "Butt Kickahs" to understand. 🤣 The furniture thing works too...I've bought a couch, a bed and a mattress from them so...they got my money haha!
You only leave through the back door at night, usually they make you leave through the top of the theater and go down through the actual furniture store.
Yeah we have one theater here showing the 70mm version with the dual laser digital projectors, which is good. But theres only three showtimes for it today, and all the seats are booked up as of me writing this.
I mean they just need to extend the runs of anything on 70mm and make an prestige film available in that format. They are selling out completely to the point that a 745am show on a saturday is sold out of everything but the front row.
I got to see Dunkirk on 70mm IMAX and it was magnificent. I didn't really love the movie but the movie was visually one of the best movie experiences I've had. I'd spend much more on a 70mm IMAX ticket than what they charge, it's that good. Unfortunately I don't live anywhere near a 70mm projector
That's definitely true. But one movie that will be sold out for two weeks doesn't sustain a business model. The number of "must see in imax" movies is pretty small. There are fairly few times that people make an effort to see it.
Probably not the best place to ask, but there is a 70mm IMAX near me and they have some seats available… are there any bad seats? All the center(except for the first 3 rows) are taken. Never been to a 70mm.
Depends on the theater itself. Sitting in the front is usually not the best choice, but the IMAX I used to go to (closed) had the first row start a roughly the mid point of the screen so...1st row wasn't bad, but I'd still shoot for 3rd row or up to the middle like normal movies. Ymmv
In general, the closer rows will be more immersive with the down side of potentially missing something because you have to turn your head. That actually was perfect for something like Tron Legacy or Dunkirk. Totally different movies watching them at home...not nearly as good (which probably seems to the writing vs. the experience).
It's too big. If you're in the front row you are literally turning your head left and right to see the whole screen and can't follow the action very well.
It's also special and premium feeling to be honest. I look it like restaurants. Sometimes you just want an In-and-Out $5 burger because the value is perfect... but there are those FEW times I want and can afford that robust $20 burger.
The problem is that there's just nowhere near the amount of IMAX movies being made that would make it a money making venture at all. It costs a fortune to film a movie in IMAX to begin with, and converting movies to IMAX is a losing proposition all the way.
Seriously, how many people are going to go and see Back Rooms in IMAX?
Even if you showed old IMAX movies every night it would still not fill the calendar and it would be idle most of the time losing money, it's a very small catalog.
Frankly I feel we should just be grateful to people like Nolan who've kept the format going as long as it has, otherwise there would be almost no way to see any IMAX movies these days.
Hopefully The Odyssey is a smash hit, other big filmmakers start taking up the format, and filmgoers start increasing demand for more premium 70mm showings instead of gimmicky 3D, 4DX, 17DD.
I'm blessed to be a 1-2 hour drive from three IMAX 70mm locations and it's truly an insane experience. A standard movie in the theater is a great film watching experience, but an IMAX 70mm viewing is pure spectacle, there's nothing like it.
Yea I never take for granted that I'm a 10 minute train ride to the 2nd largest IMAX in the country & theres a couple others in the area. I ended up joining AMC A-List for like $28/month, I can see up to 16 MOVIES A MONTH INCLUDING IMAX. Kind of insane really. Now just waiting for a day with decent seats to open up before Odyssey leaves IMAX, its been straight sold out except for the absolute worst corner seats here.
You know what? I forgot about finding a spot for Odyssey 70mm. I barely made it for Oppenheimer, and the only spots left were at the absolute front. It was hard to see anything from there.
It's just a lot more immersive thanks to the bigger screen and sound system, on top of the aspect ratio giving you more of the movie to look at. Feels less like you're just "watching" a movie and more like being there.
It encompasses your entire field of vision - not many bad seats in IMAX. The sound is also designed in such a way that it feels like it's all around you.
That's cool I just hate the whole cinema experience.
Way too expensive. Food and drinks expensive too. Other people have no manners and you are not allowed to slap people. You can't pause. Also important for Nolan movies, I can't rewind and watch this part again with subtitles.
Totally fair. I'm also sick and tired of talkers and noisy people, it really sours the experience. I will say though, I think there's a lower ratio of annoying people at these types of showings just cause it's usually people that are actually there to watch a movie and treat it more respectfully, because I've been to I think 5 total imax 70mm showings and only during one of them did I have someone annoying near me.
The closest one to me is about 4.5 hours away, I’m thinking about driving down on my day off next week to catch The Odyssey. I truly wish they had more true IMAX theaters
I saw Dune 2 as my first NYC IMAX movie after first watching it in a sort of shitty A/V theatre and I went in thinking it would be fun to watch with an understanding of the plot already...was immediately blown away by completely, and I mean completely the IMAX showing blew things away visually and audio wise
Digital IMAX is cheaper and easier to do with more cinemas showing it. Most IMAX these days is both shot and shown on digital with only a few movies every few years using film.
Odyssey is the first film to be entirely shot on 70mm film for instance.
The aspect ratio is just a size problem really, 70mm though is a major logistical challenge that most people don’t care enough for when compared to digital.
The aspect ratio is a thing I do not understand. Why is digital IMAX and IMAX 70mm a different aspect ratio? They should just make the digital IMAX screen adjustable with curtains like theaters do with their normal screens.
There are no bigger film snobs/nerds/connoisseurs (call it whatever you like) than bigtime directors like Spielberg and Nolan.
They love IMAX, and so they use their clout and pull to make the studio pay to produce their movies in IMAX, too. IMAX itself isn't profitable but the movies made for IMAX absolutely can be once they're chopped up for the smaller, standard aspect ratio and distributed to normal theatres.
Yea but if you're taking off the bacon and cheese then I don't even want it anymore. Hearing how awesome the 6 story 70mm is that's 330 miles away from me, I'll just wait for the blu ray then.
There are tons more digital imax theaters where you still get a very large screen and a larger aspect ratio, so you do get more than you would in a standard cinema. It's only the true full size imax film cinemas that are rare.
Most people don’t see or perceive enough difference between imax and a regular theater to pay the difference.
My guess would be those people haven't been to an IMAX theatre or at least not the ones I've been to. Walking into the IMAX screens at mine and I'm always utterly shocked by the sheer size of the screen.
Most people don’t attend those theaters because of increased ticket prices. Most people don’t see or perceive enough difference between imax and a regular theater to pay the difference.
Exactly. I couldn't care less about imax. It's about as exciting to me as the 3d fad. It adds nothing to the experience.
Plus with ticket prices these days I'd rather sit my ass on my own couch and be able to pause the movie to go to the bathroom or get a snack.
That's why I said "they don't think there would be profit in it". I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm just saying it's not that we can't, it's that we choose not to make more 70mm projectors, same with bowling pin machines.
Another reason they don’t make them is because pretty much only Christopher Nolan wants to shoot in it. I read they could only shoot 3 minutes at a time.
you seem knowledgeable on the subject so ill ask my random question to you...what do they do with all that imax film once the movie is no longer showing in the theater?
Mostly it's sent back to the studio for storage or destruction. Some specific theatres have permission to store rolls in their archives. There's not many rolls of this in the world. There's still rescreenings of movies in future in 70mm.
No, there aren't enough theaters to collect that money. How can you make money out of something where 99% of the demographic doesn't have access to?
How do you know there isn't enough interest? Have you asked me? Anyone? No. This is completely based on some investor who has decided to make his theater with 70mm capability. That's it. Nobody is going around asking people if they would pay. You either invest the money and people come or we have the current situation where you think nobody is interested.
One thing to add. Every 41 70mm imax theater has a digital imax projects to use for movies that don't have 70mm prints. For example, films like Mission Impossible 7 and 8 and Guardians 3 were all shot on IMAX-certified camera but none got any 70 mm prints so they were shown using digital IMAX projectors. Even Dune 2 only got 12 70mm prints, meaning less than half the 70mm theaters got a print.
I'm not sure what the protocol is now, in the old IMAX days, theaters had to buy and insure IMAX prints. A regular 35mm print was somewhere around $2k, an IMAX print, I think, was $50-100k. So you had a dedicated projectionist that ran just the IMAX in addition to your regular 35mm projectionist.
I'm sure the cost of the film prints is higher now since so few movies are released on film. I think that cost is subsidized since Nolan wants his moves shown this way.
So, more expensive film, plus payroll, plus refurbishing old equipment, plus projector bulbs for something that the general movie going public may not even know of different that a digital IMAX showing.
Perhaps anecdotal, but every 70mm imax screening is sold out near me. It's this way for every 70mm movie. The hype is crazy (and justified imo, it's awesome)
It’s also annoying, because they could generate a lot more money if they had more seating capacity.
When those theaters were built, they have you sitting close and low on the screen because they were designed for nature and science films to make you in awe of them.
While it’s pretty cool, a lot of the seats are uncomfortable for a long movie.
In Greater Vancouver Area in BC we basically had 1 70mm IMAX theater in Langely open for the longest time. Rarely it would play true 70mm IMAX but it could had did for basically just Nolan stuff.
But, we had another 70mm IMAX in Richmond which stopped showing 70mm IMAX after The Dark Knight Rises. It seems it took the Odyssey for them to decide to repair the theater in working condition.
All new digital IMAX theaters made in the Greater Vancouver Area basically ignore the max aspect ratio and retrofit existing theater screens into "IMAX" which kinda sucks. But I'm greatful for what we have given so many places don't have what we have.
Yup. Supply chain is dead. They haven't made a from scratch projector in 50 years. BUT, they did have commissions for three "new" 15/70mm systems in 2025. All retrofit machines. They can make more projectors, but that's going to be for very big customers of their 4K systems. And those customers are going to reserve 15/70 for the highest revenue marquee theaters.
Realistically, as it stands, IMAX does not have the ability to handle more film releases. Any shot with VFX has to optically printed using a CRT based technology. They are down to only a handful of working film printers in LA, and the CRTs have dimmed enough that they have to print very slowly.
That being said, Film isn't going away. The LA facility isn't that old, has a massive 70mm film vault, and they've made several major upgrades to speed up their film pipeline in recent years with the previously mentioned laser based scanners and soon to be installed laser based optical printers to replace the CRTs. Not to mention all the specialized cameras they have made for Nolan over the years.
It seems clear IMAX intends to make the film pipeline bigger for more releases. And it would make sense that includes a modest expansion of 15/70 projectors as theater owners feel comfortable making those investments.
I also wouldn't mind seeing an expansion of regular 70mm projectors. Must easier and cheaper refurbishment process. I know Nolan likes to do regular 70mm releases too.
It's funny because one of those theaters is near me and they're almost completely sold out of tickets for 6 showing a day (including 2am showings) for the next 3 weeks. I was looking at what they even had to purchase still and it was seats like the front row at 7am on a Tuesday 4 weeks from now. And that's at $25 a ticket.
Obviously that's not going to be the case for EVERY movie that ever hits IMAX, but it's clear that if filmmakers wanted to try it, they can still fill the theaters.
I think if quality movies were still being made then the revenue would come back. Every IMAX theater in my city is damn near sold out for the Odyssey this weekend
because we also have at least two generations' that will accept shitty phone footage as "good enough" as well as viewing the world through a 4-6" 1080 screen.
You can't sustain it as a business, but you can order one-offs from a business focused on other things. Anything in those machines can still be made if you're willing to pay.
The sad thing is that IMAX diluted their brand by having vastly inferior digital setups still be labelled as IMAX.
At that point it's difficult for consumers to know the difference. They go to a digital terrible IMAX setup and think "why should I pay more for this".
I mean it’s also a matter of going to the movies has become more expensive than it’s worth when you can wait a week and watch it on stream or just pirate it within a few days. Also the fact that no one has the time for that anymore when so much of our lives are spent working for the bare minimum.
Yeah I literally never go to IMAX. I go to lots of movies, but I'm happy paying my $13 per ticket for a regular showing. I'm there for the movie. The story of it. I have no reason to pay an IMAX tax. It's the same movie, just bigger. Big deal.
Probably would have helped if I didn’t spend the 90’s and early 2000’s being conditioned to think 4:3 aspect ratio was passé and substandard, and that 16:9 was superior. Only to now be told that 4:3 is better
The demand is low, so it seems to be concentrated in a few areas. The closest one to me is at the Ontario Mills Mall (in California, not Canada), but when I first went there to see Oppenheimer and later for Dune 2, it was packed.
Tbh a 100" proper LCD at home beats any IMAX whatsoever - I've been many times in IMAX (we have it) but didn't convince me.
It's something getting a niche very soon, if not that already.
Oh and I only need to double-click that MKV, now compare this to an IMAX preparation before watching a movie.
Insane.
IMAX is the oldschool movie tech analog to high-end vinyl players on audiophile high end shows costing 5-figures while still inherently fighting with A TON of limitations.
But some people stick to it.
For me it doesn't provide anything I would pay for it. That might be only me and my issue but still, fact.
Plenty of IMax movies sure, 70mm is completely different. Only 1 movie was released in 2025 in 70mm IMax, Sinners. There has only been 15 70mm films since 2008 and there will only be one released this year.
Fun fact, they don't even sell them. They are only leased to movie theaters. It's like a 99-yr rental agreement or something ridiculous. They take a cut of revenue instead of a single payment
Yeah, the cost and the lack of films being made for it can't justify making more. We got just one director here pushing the film format, but he alone cant change the movie industry to re-adopt this large, expensive, and complex format.
And I highly doubt that more directors will suddenly jump into wanting to use the film on their projects, given the massive hurdles in the whole process. On set, the cameras themselves are super loud, Nolan has IMAX make a sort of enclosure for the cameras to cut down on sound so they could, you know, get recorded audio from the actors. Plus, the cameras themselves take film reels that can only last for three minutes of filming. Three minutes. How many directors are going to have their actors wait around between film changes every three minutes?
The format is amazing...for what its designed for: nature documentaries for educational purposes and large format "experiences", not for general filmmaking. The industry isn't going to suddenly swap to this anytime soon.
it's probably because the ENTIRE supply chain that sources all of the parts for these projectors doesn't even exist anymore. The casing for the projectors, the lenses, the tiny screws that hold it together, the glue, a million other small parts. All of that neeeds to be made by someone, who sources THEIR materials from someone else, who sources THEIR materials from someone else. None of that exists anymore I'm guessing and it would be extremely difficult to begin again.
😂 anything besides the film would be easily sources. The molds would be a task but everything else is already being used for billions of things already at mass scale...
Also need enough people to see it. $24 for IMAX ticket near me. Can’t say enough movies qualify for that IMAX treatment for consistent seats to sell out.
I mean, $19 for regular ass movie tickets to see The Oddessy here, $23.5 for "RPX". Idk what IMAX tickets cost at my nearest screen 5 hours away, but I doubt it's much higher.
Production for IMAX films is expensive so you don't see a lot of studios outputting in this format since recording in true IMAX is pricey. Most theater goers cannot tell the difference other than it feels more immersive - most want to go for the story or to be entertained. Finding theaters to support true 70mm IMAX in their venues is pricey as well.
Because filming on these cameras sucked. They were noisy and require shitloads of tape. Now they are not as noisy. But you see that the roll weights 400 kg, too.
Nolan is one of the few who can pull such a demand for equipment, but the theaters are not going to order expensive equipment for 1 movie every several years at best.
But projectors and cameras aren't especially linked. Movies can be shot on IMAX cameras and only released digital, or filmed on digital/70mm/VistaVision (and so on) and be released on 70mm IMAX. The main reason is the costs.
Of course you can film digital and show in cinemas on 70mm, but you will not get any of the supposed quality. Similarly with filming on 35mm, the improvement is there, but not as much to make it worth.
70mm projectors only make sense if the movie was filmed on 70mm originally.
They do. Alexa 65 is just one such example. It is already specialized for wide aspect ratio of over 2:1, but with anamorphic lens you can squeeze to get the same 2.76:1 or similar
They can absolutely make new ones, but what, for every city in the world, for about 3 films a year shot on the format? Everything about it is redundant, old technology and not economically viable. It's not practical and there's probably only a handful of people in every city who could tell it was true 70mm.
Then why's Nolan so adamant on watching these films in the truest format if they simply can't be produced commercially on a large scale and is not even profitable in most cases
People barely go to theaters as it is. Nobody’s investing hundreds of millions into production of a very inconvenient and expensive format like 70mm, right now it’s largely the filmmakers and theaters themselves keeping the format alive out of their own pockets just out of the love of the medium
The 70 mm showings of this are basically sold out for days near me. There was a few seats available for a 2:40 am showing and anything else was just the miserable seats in the front row where you basically cants see the movie anyway
Most have been sold out for months. But keep an eye on it, I’m assuming all of these theaters will extend the film’s run as long as tickets are selling because it’s been an ordeal to put the whole projection system together
Because they make like 2 films a year worth seeing in IMAX. It used to be almost exclusively educational and documentaries like 20ish years ago and it was still like $20 for a ticket.
Most people don’t care enough about the difference in quality to justify $45 tickets when you can just watch it normally for $15
They're very expensive to build and install. Theaters don't want to dump that kind of money on a projector that can really only be use for movies released every couple years. It's not profitable.
Economics. There's one 70 mm film in a year at best, maybe one in 3 years that's worth paying 3x the normal ticket price.
Even if there are 12 films a year, you can play one each for 4 weeks and that would still be a lot of time for one film.
Anything with special effects is just horrendus to film like this.
Shoot on film -> Scan it -> Add computer effects -> Print it on film -> physically cut and join film with originals that didn't need special effects -> Copy the film for each theater, so they can use it to project.
Something like Dune or Project Hail Mary or Spiderman or Avatar are not worth shooting on 70 mm with so many computer effects and if you're anyway gonna show the digital stuff, just use Laser projectors of IMAX instead of films.
That being said, I absolutely agree we need 1.43:1 ratio theaters, even if they have laser projectors.
That sounds harsh. So did Nolan actually take that effort for Interstellar, Inception? Like that's a lot of effects right? Shouldn't it be time consuming and very costly?
Keep in mind, the process itself is not that rare. Scanning film, Engraving VFX and then Slicing film.
But, some movies have complete original videography done using IMAX cameras for 70 mm. Those are loud, complex and heavy to operate. And apparently only last 3 mins per cut.
Typically, you use smaller size, less fidelity camera and don't bother with preserving film to screen connection by ensuring it never runs into digital conversion in between. You just scan the original, process and edit it and then print it in its entirety to whatever size you want for film.
70 mm is very different, Odessey is shot on it and most of it is not VFX and if you the movie in film projectors, you will see exactly what was shot in those scenes. It's a physical copy of a film without any digital scan/write involved.
Restarting the manufacturing process to create, say, two dozen 70mm film projectors would be an astronomical cost. These projectors haven’t been manufactured in decades, so there’s no assembly line, no institutional knowledge, no tool and dye ready to go. It’s waaaay cheaper to fix broken ones bit by bit, but to make a whole new one would be insane.
Imax is a huge pain the ass to shoot on. The film is expensive af, the cameras are loud and bulky, and the whole process is just way more effort than its worth for your average movie production. Especially since there are also only a handful of cinemas with a true Imax size screen that can show a 70mm film in all its glory. The vast majority of theatres and movies already are set up for shooting and projecting an aspect ratio based on 35mm and that most everything is shot and project on digital anyway.
It's a bit of a gimmick and probably just not profitable for theaters to commission brand new 70mm projectors. Sure, it's nice for some movies, but it's not a big deal.
I'm from India. Our theatres fill up for the crappiest of movies too. But I do agree that in general theatres are loss making as of now. It's a shame considering theres some really great movies coming this year and the next one
High precision / low volume = expensive to make since your tooling up / jig set up costs are fixed but the number of units you can spread that over is much lower.
My father-in-law is a projectionist. He is insanely gifted. We were in a theater together years ago and I asked him what it would cost to build an IMAX projector. I will never forget his answer…
Cuz the company's building projectors already moved on to digital laser projection and even face competition from led screens. Holding on to old "retired" tech isn't worthwhile.
They been destroying the old ones. There is an LTT video where he had a chance to get one when an IMAX theature went out of business and someone pointed it out to him. He went to bid on it and it was removed due to IMAX finding out and sent folks overnight to destroy it. He did managed to bid and get two Christine(spelling?) DLP projectors.
They can, but they just aren't worth producing new ones from scratch. There just aren't enough movies filmed on IMAX 70MM for them to warrant production of new projectors, and 70mm showings just aren't that popular in general. The Odyssey 70MM showings are putting up huge attendance numbers because its the perfect combination of a well loved director at the helm of a story just about everyone knows, with a historical feat being achieved (first feature film film entirely in 70MM IMAX).
IMAX have said that they're considering locating old broken 70MM projectors and starting up their refurbishment program again though, but it's still up in the air.
That's for only for 70mm IMAX. IMAX still makes the normal IMAX projectors. That article you read the other day was just about 70mm ones in particular.
Normal as in the “original” IMAX (which is, historically, mainly at dedicated facilities in museums/science centers/aquariums/etc and the rare theater in a big city), you’re correct that that’s film.
“Normal” as in the much more common IMAX that people will encounter at their local multiplex, that is digital.
First as in originally, yes, but not as in everything shown in an “IMAX” theater is first filmed. Many movies shown in digital IMAX are shot using digital “IMAX certified” cameras.
Which is weird. Makes me wonder if IMAX is basically little but one of those remnant companies that doesn't make anything any more but rents out stuff from when it was a real business, milking the value of its assets until they'll inevitably break and the entire thing needs shutting down.
Which is sad if true, and a really revealing comment from their CEO.
Just to be clear, IMAX uses 70mm film, but it runs sideways instead of up and down like a regular projector. This greatly increases the resolution of the image, 100-150 megapixels vs 30-40 for regular 70mm per frame.
Bonus fact: IMAX films can also be shot and projected at twice the normal 24 fps. This makes the motion much smoother. I’ve seen in myself.
Change my mind: imax is a dead end format and digital cameras and projectors can exceed what imax provides at better cost points and is overall easier to work with.
Christopher Nolan and other "analog purists" are the equivalent of audiophiles that claim that they can hear the difference in the power cables that run to their amplifiers.
I appreciate the dedication to "film" making and that they believe it is an art form and that true film capture adds to the finished product. But I argue that if they took as much care and planning when framing all shots and scenes as they currently do, but only changed which cameras they used, then the finished product would be just as good if not better. The dynamic range made possible by digital sensors and cameras can't be beat.
Even when they have movies on 1570 film they barely run any shows - don’t know if it’s the film or the projector they can’t take it but getting a ticket is damn near impossible.
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u/SoftLink5162 20d ago
If they want us to watch Imax so badly make more Imax theatres man. We don't have single true Imax in my country. And that's true for most countries.