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Cinemas Weigh Launching New Large Screen Brand To Challenge Imax (bloomberg.com) 35

Posted by msmash from the whatever-floats-the-boat dept.
Major US theater chains including Cinemark, Regal and Marcus have held preliminary talks about jointly marketing their big-screen theaters to compete with Imax, according to Bloomberg. The discussions have focused on setting shared standards for the chains' "premium large-format" theaters, with options including uniting around a new brand name or adding an industrywide designation that would serve as a stamp of approval for their locations.

The chains are motivated by Imax's growing influence in the industry, as the company consistently generates more than 10% of the box office for blockbusters despite operating only 372 US locations. AMC Entertainment, the largest chain and biggest operator of Imax screens in the US, is not participating in the deliberations, the report added.

Cinemas Weigh Launching New Large Screen Brand To Challenge Imax More | Reply

Cinemas Weigh Launching New Large Screen Brand To Challenge Imax

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  • So these chains are developing their own 70mm film (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Thursday July 17, 2025 @09:12AM (#65526698) Homepage Journal
    One of the appeals of the IMAX experience is that they're showing films that are filmed on a special VERY LARGE format film, I believe it is 70mm.....at least twice the resolution of the common 35mm movie.

    Unless these new "large" theaters are doing to develop their own large format film, or extremely large digital sensors....they will be showing 35mm on a larger screen...which will result mostly in lost resolution, no?

    Just having a big screen doesn't cut it...

    • Fake IMAX (Score:4, Informative)

      by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Thursday July 17, 2025 @09:30AM (#65526736)

      Theaters started souring on IMAX when, back in the early 2000's, they would regularly show 35mm films on IMAX screens and say that they were "IMAX" movies. We got suckered into seeing one of the Harry Potter movies at one. Problem is, a regular 35mm projector doesn't put out enough light to fill an IMAX screen, so it was *dark* A quarter of the movie were indistinct shadowy shapes moving around on the screen. It was also not as sharp as it was basically being enlarged on the screen, but the darkness was the main problem.

      Anyways, IMAX caught wind and started pulling their certification from the screens, meaning they couldn't call their screens IMAX any more, nor would they get any IMAX exclusive releases. Now that IMAX is seeing a resurgence, as you can't get the same experience at home unless you have a bunch of money and a dedicated home theater room, theater owners want to still show regular movies on the large screen that are not IMAX. I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for them.

      By the way, the theater chain that showed the fake Harry Potter IMAX movie was AMC. That was the last time we went to an AMC theater, until we saw Oppenheimer in 70mm which was only playing at the AMC. There are two local cinema chains that are far superior to AMC where I live, and have absorbed most of the AMC locations.

    • Movies aren't usually filmed any more. And IIRC IMAX's digital format is a variant of 2K (a weird "two overlapping 2K images" thing), as opposed to mainstream cinema's 4 and 8K.

      So, with that in mind, I think the conventional cinemas today have an edge on quality, even if not on screen size.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by _merlin ( 160982 )

        Nah, the IMAX digital laser projection system actually has minimum 4096 pixel horizontal resolution with frequency domain multiplexed stereoscopic mode. The older IMAX digital used two Barco DLP projectors (proper three-chip DLP, not colour wheel crap) slightly offset from each other, but that should be mostly phased out by now.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Shrubbman ( 3807 )

          The older IMAX digital used two Barco DLP projectors (proper three-chip DLP, not colour wheel crap) slightly offset from each other, but that should be mostly phased out by now.

          "Should" and "mostly" give no solace to those of us stuck waiting for the local IMAX screen's older digital projectors to finally conk out so they'll finally upgrade. They've got a full height 1.43:1 screen dating back to the 90s but dragged their feet so long on upgrading from analog to digital that if they'd just waited one more year they could have gone straight to second gen digital, but NO they upgraded at the exact wrong time to do so leaving us stuck with a projection system that can't actually fill

      • There are plenty of movies which are filmed. Especially blockbusters. Hell for Oppenheimer they had to develop a custom film carrier for IMAX since the actual film reel didn't fit on the IMAX projector due to the movie length.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      A little competition isn't a bad thing.

      And honestly, they aren't going to compete with true IMAX. However, they might actually be a good way to kill off "liemax" which is a faux-IMAX presentation.

      "Liemax" is so-called because it's really just a normal theatre screen shoved into half the footprint so you're closer and the screen looks bigger. It uses the lower end 2K projectors (in a 2K-2K pair) so is considered to be a poor man's IMAX experience. It honestly sucks and is NOT worth the IMAX premium

      IMAX is w

      • I drove 3 hrs once to see a film in IMAX only to find out it was liemax.

        Imagine how happy I was.

        The only IMAX I've paid for since then was "Sully" at Air & Space. Or "Avatar" in Omnimax. I was a huge fan in the 90's. They burned my good will.

      • or something else that would benefit moviegoers.

        Forget the technical details of the movie itself. How about adding ushers that can and will kick people out for talking - or for repeatedly using your phone?

        That's what caused me to stop "going to the movies".

        But it might be too late... enough of us now have decent-sized home displays with decent sound systems, and don't care if we have to wait a month to see a particular new movie. It's hard to compete with a nearby kitchen, a private bathroom, and a "pause" button.

    • Of the IMAX-branded theaters, only a small number of them have 70mm projection capability.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ah802 ( 810203 )
      Perhaps it's time the industry re-examine Cinerama with wide wrap around, deeply curved screen, subtending 146-degrees of arc immersion mimicking the eyeball curvature. Introduced in the 50's Cinerama was presented to the public as a theatrical event, with reserved seating and printed programs. This is Cinerama (demo) was the hit of 1952 with sell-out crowds for a year, the technology limitations of film & multi projectors can easily be overcome with modern digital.
      • I like this idea. instead of placing the screen far away and making it oversized to fill the eye, maybe have seating for 20-30 people and make a smaller wrap around screen.

      • Perhaps it's time the industry re-examine Cinerama

        Unfortunately, only three Cinerama screens still exist in the US (I saw Grand Prix at the one in LA. And while the movie was basically a soap opera outside of the racing scenes, those racing scenes were something else)

    • IMAX is more than just film, its an entire workflow for video and audio inclusive of the hardware and IP. Good luck to these guys trying to compete. IMAX has gone digital because their legacy cameras sound like jet engines and ate up chemical film like no other which is why they were only used in select scenes (landscapes) in the past.

  • Good Luck (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SlashbotAgent ( 6477336 ) on Thursday July 17, 2025 @09:12AM (#65526700)

    I can get a 75" 4K TV for under $400.

    With that, my entire family can watch, in the comfort of our own home, and have a much better than theater experience.

    I realize that the difference is screens s still significant, but it's not so much as to the inconvenience and predatory cost.

    • Umm, you guys are gonna sit 3 feet away from it? Guaranteed you'll see pixels. IMAX 70mm is about 12K equivalent. IMAX also has "IMAX Laser" which is digital and only 4K but the projection blurs it so you don't notice the pixels.

      • No AMC "Fake IMAX" screen is running 70mm. It's all slightly better than normal digital but still no where near what Real IMAX was both in visual quality and screen size. There's a reason in the past only major cities might have a single Real IMAX screen. They were expensive as fuck to build and run. For most people they were probably lucky if there were 2 or 3 Real IMAX screens in their entire state.
  • What could they hope to offer to get people in beyond just feature parity?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Gilmoure ( 18428 )

      Our local theater chain (Icon Cinemas, mostly New Mexico) has their large 'Iconic' screen (only about 1/3 of an IMAX screen). But for $2 more, it's worth it for seeing films like Superman or Sinners. These are about the only kind of films we head into town for. The rest of the time, yeah, nice 75" Sony, bought during 2020 superbowl sales (lucked out there) covers the rest of our movie times.

      No IMAX options in the state; 6 hour drives to either Denver or Phoenix.

      Wasn't aware the nationwide chains in the arti

  • Not Invented Here (Score:3)

    by necro81 ( 917438 ) on Thursday July 17, 2025 @09:14AM (#65526704) Journal
    This sounds a bit like "not invented here [wikipedia.org]" syndrome. A company makes a me-too product, or reinvents the wheel, because they just don't want to pay to use someone else's. IMAX is more than just a giant screen; it's an entire format for film and audio. The equipment is top notch. And I expect these companies don't want to pay the premium to have/use it.

    My fear is that, in doing this, their aversion to pay will extend into lowering quality. That is: they don't only want an IMAX-like product they can control (and avoid the licensing fees); they want a cheaper product, period. And by cheaper, they'll sacrifice quality. Will it entice the likes of Christopher Nolan? I'm skeptical. Kinda like with TVs: if all you want is a giant screen, you can waltz into any big box store and get something cheap. If you want a quality display, you're going to need to pay more.

    And, for better or worse, a lot of folks still consuming the mid-level drivel churning out of Hollywood couldn't care less or notice the difference.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jonadab ( 583620 )
      If they were doing this in 1985, or even 1995, I might think they were attempting to re-invent the IMAX format. But in 2025, with a quote in the summary about box office revenues for blockbuster Hollywood films, I don't think that's necessarily what's going on.

      Rather, I think a lot of people have gotten so used to watching movies at home, that they don't bother going to the movie theater at all unless it's to see the film "on the big screen". Cinema revenues have therefore dropped so much, that the modest

    • NIH is almost indistinguishable from attempting to take down a monopoly. In many cases the approach of NIH is the result of simply not wanting to pay the royalties to the fuckers who are out to screw you. It's one thing to pay a premium for good gear, it's quite another to pay a premium because it's the only gear and you're being screwed on cost.

  • Actual IMAX is neat. What they put in most theaters is a watered down version of it. Sure...the local imax screen might be a little bigger; but it's not on par with their original product. They didn't invent 70mm...maybe they came up with the idea of running it horizontally....but I'm pretty sure that's only a thing on the actual legit IMAX setups; not the junk in your local theater.

    Remember THX? IMAX is the new THX. THX was a certification, technically. Sure...it was sound. It was all the rage in home audi

  • Let's create ANOTHER standard and fragment things even more. I'm sure that will help!!!!! DOH!!!!

  • ...theaters are dying.

    We've seen 2 movies at a theater in the last 5 or 6 years.... both experiences were overpriced and pretty terrible.

    Dirty uncomfortable seats.... sticky floors... $5 waters that cost $1 anywhere else... stale popcorn... and people on their phones and talking through half the movie.

    Why would I EVER spend another dollar at a theater when I can just stream the movie at home a couple of months later often for free.

  • It smells like the 3D fad in that high res is interesting the first few times you see it, but loses its wow-factor after a while, and not worth the discomfort.

    It would also make production costs go up as movies will have to be designed, rendered, and vetted at higher resolution.

    And I don't want to see pores, zits, and moles close in enough resolution for dermatologists to write prescriptions in the theatre. Movies are to be escapism, not science class. I don't want to see Keanu Reeves' pores for 2 hours. Mo

  • AMC is not participating, but AMC has IMAX screens. My guess is the reality really is. AMC has an exclusivity agreement with IMAX that only their theaters can have "Fake IMAX" screens in them. All the other theaters want to have something similar so are going to make their own standard.

  • Let me know if they ever start creating content that would justify the majority of movie viewers caring.

  • All the IMAX theaters around my area have closed or are about to.

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