TALK about downsizing. IMAX, which has long touted massive screens as tall as eight stories, is introducing a new generation of smaller auditoriums it says provide an equivalent viewing experience.
A new IMAX screen opened with little fanfare last month at the AMC Empire 25 on 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue. Two more debuted yesterday: one in Regal’s existing multiplex in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, and another in a new megaplex Regal is bowing in Deer Park on Long Island.
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I recently watched “Eagle Eye: The IMAX Experience” at the Empire. Aside from a new, more deeply curved screen, the experience seemed much like when I saw the same movie on a very large conventional screen. To me, it wasn’t quite like the dozens of movies I’ve seen at the 14-year-old Lincoln Square IMAX on Broadway and 68th Street.
According to figures provided by IMAX, the Lincoln Square auditorium has a screen that measures 100 feet by 80 feet, compared with 57.7 feet by 29.1 feet at the Empire.
“IMAX is not just about screen size, though these new screens are always the largest in a multiplex,” says IMAX president Greg Foster. “It’s about our proprietary sound system, the immersive experience.”
The new auditoriums can be retrofitted to existing multiplexes, and AMC is planning IMAX screens at its Kips Bay on Second Avenue and West 34th Street (at Eighth Avenue) theaters early next year. Foster says the Empire screen is already one of the top-grossing IMAX locations in the country.
The new IMAX screens – about 150 are planned by 2010 – will be devoted to animated family fare and high-tech event films.
Next month will bring “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa,” followed by “The Day the Earth Stood Still” in December.