I came to San Diego early to see a presentation by the good people at
IMAX ( they enticed me with beer) at a theater just outside of town.
After some ironic technical glitches we got to see a 20 minute reel of
IMAX footage, including the first 12 3D minutes of the new Harry
Potter, opening on IMAX next week. (Verdict on that footage: eh. The 3D
is impressive in some scenes, but much of it feels like a pop-up book:
Dumbledore is 3D against the background, but Dumbledore himself doesn’t
feel 3D).
I asked the IMAX folks about the controversy about the multiplexing of
IMAX screens – ie, smaller IMAX screens that are dwarfed by the
traditional multi-story screens – and they said they hope to have a
rebranding announcement in the next month. In-house they seem to call
it IMAX MPX (multiplex), which sounds good to me.
They also announced some films that will be coming in IMAX – Where the
Wild Things Are! – as well as some they hope to get. The hopefuls
aren’t set in stone and some haven’t even been negotiated yet. They did
seem pretty optimistic about Chris Nolan’s Inception though.
What about Malick’s Tree of Life? Despite some reports it’s not being
filmed in IMAX, although it may play IMAX. They have met with Malick.
While IMAX is dedicated to blockbusters right now, they are open to
experimenting with smaller films in the non-blockbuster months, like
September and October.
Coming:
Alice in Wonderland 3D
How to Train Your Dragon 3D
Shrek 4 3D
Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs
Avatar
Where The Wild Things Are
Hopefuls:
Inception
Harry Potter 7A and 7B
Tron
Spider-Man 4
Guardians of Gahool
Ubermind (Nov 2010)
Tintin
Happy Feet 2
Hobbit