First for a small bit of news from Nolan Fans that reports a new trailer for The Dark Knight Rises will play in front of The Avengers when it hits theaters on May 4. The news comes from a password protected WB exhibitor site and says the trailer will be playing in front of all formats of Avengers screenings, including IMAX, which is where we have some additional news.
When Nolan opened The Dark Knight with the massive IMAX shot of the city of Gotham the effect IMAX could have on a film was immediately realized. Nearly 30 minutes of that film was shot in IMAX, and a new report from The Wall Street Journal brings word The Dark Knight Rises is going even bigger.
Back in December, when the prologue to The Dark Knight Rises was playing in theaters in front of IMAX screenings of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol it was thought there would be anywhere from 40-50 minutes of IMAX footage in the film, Now it is said The Dark Knight Rises "will contain the most IMAX footage ever for a Hollywood feature, more than one hour's worth."
Quoted in the WSJ piece, Nolan says, "I remember looking at the audience every time a helicopter banked, and everyone was leaning slightly to the side... I had never seen an audience so immersed in a film."
The Dark Knight Rises hits theaters on July 20. If you haven't yet seen the current trailer you can check it out below and pretty soon I'll have a new one to share with you, so stay tuned.
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Could a trailer for "Gravity" play in front of "The Avengers"?
I don't know. A large part of the Imax was used on flybys. I remember an interview he did where here said that he was using the Imax cameras for intimate scenes and not just action scenes. I don't think that happened.
And frankly, I don't see the appeal of Imax. For one thing, there's very few of them. There's only one in my entire state, and I think only two in my country. At least with 3D every cinema has it. Not that I care about 3D or anything. Just makes a lot more sense.
And the Imax I went to in Melbourne didn't seem all that big. Supposed to be 7 stories high? Sure didn't look like it.
Yes, the Imax is supposed to be 8 stories high, and if it was not, that means your movie theater has now converted to Digital,and no longer uses 35mm, or it is a fake Imax even here in U.S.A. there are only few original Imax theaters left.
We only have two imax screens in Scotland. One is a proper, science centre, massive one and the other one is smaller converted from an old large picture format. I saw MI4 on both. IMAX is the future of cinema but its impact depends even more than a regular film on the size of the screen and the quality of projection. When done right it's simply awesome and much better than 3d.
I love IMAX and can't wait to see this movie on it. I still consider seeing The Dark Knight on IMAX to be the best theater experience I've had so far in all of my years going to the movies. You just have to make sure you're seeing a real IMAX presentation, and not some fake one that is often in multiplexes.
All i know is I wont ever see it in IMAX so I dont care. I just wanna see the movie.
Side-note to Brad:
I think you need a story on the IMAX Digital Theatre System and Screen Size Controversy.
There is quite a bit of confusion out there in the world on IMAX theaters and a clear article about the differences is NEEDED on site like yours.
For example in Minnesota their will be only 3 IMAX screens that will be showing DK and only 1 is a "real" celluloid film IMAX screen and the other two are Digital IMAX.
The difference between these 2 formats (Digital and celluloid) is unquestionable.
I think Nolan philosophy and passion for IMAX is bastardized when shown on Digital IMAX.
Brad - You need to educate your readers and take a stance on this.
70mm IMAX is never going to take off the way 3D has, because 70mm IMAX theatres are virtually obsolete compared to the smaller, digital LIE-MAX screens. Do people even realize that LIE-MAX and 70mm IMAX don't even have the same aspect ratio? LIE-MAX is 1.78:1, virtually the same as 1.85:1 flat. 70mm IMAX uses the traditional IMAX ratio of 1.44:1, virtually the same as 1.33:1 standard (non-widescreen TVs and The Artist). So even for films shot in IMAX, when they're shown in LIE-MAX, they're certainly not pillarboxing the image, so you're getting a cropped (pan and scanned really) version of the native image. Of course if you see the film in regular 2.39:1 scope (which I will be), the IMAX scenes are cropped even further, but you'd assume Nolan is taking into account the fact that these scenes will be shown in three different ratios when he composed the shots. That's a bit of an aside, but that's why shooting in IMAX will never take off, because the theatres don't exist to show films in the IMAX ratio on any large scale. And the IMAX corporation has said that the future of IMAX is digital, and that IMAX is no longer meant to be synonymous with just big screens, but with the "best quality experience," or something like that (the quote I'm thinking of was from over a year ago). Which is funny considering that LIE-MAX uses a 2K dual projection system, which is inferior to 4K that is available in some areas; they also use a 6.1 sound mix, whereas 7.1 is available in some standard auditoriums as well. As far as I'm concerned, LIE-MAX is as much of a gimmick as 3D is, and no one is building any 70mm IMAX theatres anymore.
Brad, if possible, nearer to the film's release, could you put out a list of 'real' IMAX theaters, so fans can get their money's worth?