Since Christopher Nolan started shooting in Imax, it’s been a much more welcomed technology than the 3D revival. There have been some incredible Imax releases over the last five years or so, culminating with the experience of Gravity, which should only result in more Imax movies in the future.
As Imax president Greg Foster told The Hollywood Reporter, “Gravity is a seminal movie for us. There’s a whole crop of moviegoers – I call them the ‘get-around-to people’ – who never see a movie in a theater but who are coming to Gravity.” This is certainly what Jeffrey Katzenberg was hoping would happen with 3D, but Imax may indeed be a much more blockbuster friendly technology.
As Foster continued, “Filmmakers are at the core of what differentiates Imax from everyone else, and we work with them for months…We are a partner in the process.” With Christopher Nolan’s next movie, the upcoming sci-fi film Interstellar, “[Nolan] was designing Interstellar with Imax in mind before one frame was shot.”
Now another good question. What about the screens being “cannibalized” with so many Imax movies coming out? This is what happened with Metallica’s Imax movie Through the Never, which got killed by Gravity. “It’s putting our long-term relationships first,” Foster said. “There are times when the same studio will have a movie open, and the movie doesn’t turn out what everyone hoped it would be.”
We all pretty much knew that 3D wouldn’t last forever, and Imax may not either, but it’s certainly having a hell of a run right now, and it’s certain to only grow bigger with Hunger Games: Catching Fire on November 22.
