It's also special and premium feeling to be honest. I look it like restaurants. Sometimes you just want an In-and-Out $5 burger because the value is perfect... but there are those FEW times I want and can afford that robust $20 burger.
The problem is that there's just nowhere near the amount of IMAX movies being made that would make it a money making venture at all. It costs a fortune to film a movie in IMAX to begin with, and converting movies to IMAX is a losing proposition all the way.
Seriously, how many people are going to go and see Back Rooms in IMAX?
Even if you showed old IMAX movies every night it would still not fill the calendar and it would be idle most of the time losing money, it's a very small catalog.
Frankly I feel we should just be grateful to people like Nolan who've kept the format going as long as it has, otherwise there would be almost no way to see any IMAX movies these days.
Hopefully The Odyssey is a smash hit, other big filmmakers start taking up the format, and filmgoers start increasing demand for more premium 70mm showings instead of gimmicky 3D, 4DX, 17DD.
We have one in Lititz, last time I was in one I got a free ticket for giving blood, but I usually go to the non IMAX one...because I have free tickets for giving blood haha. The sound is way better in the IMAX though. My wife and I went to see Project Hail Mary at the IMAX. Mindblowing. They don't have the reclining chairs though.
One thing that hurt the perception of I-Max around here is when the regular theaters went to lounge chair seating. All of a sudden, what used to be relatively premium / comfortable I-Max seating is really sub-par compared to the loungers, and the way the I-Max theaters are built, they can't retrofit without extensive/expensive rework of the theater floors - even then, I'm not sure that lounger seating positions even work for "the I-Max experience."
Combine that with the trend to 2.5+ hour "big movies" and it only makes things worse for the smaller bowl theater seats.
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u/mccarthybergeron Jul 16 '26
It's also special and premium feeling to be honest. I look it like restaurants. Sometimes you just want an In-and-Out $5 burger because the value is perfect... but there are those FEW times I want and can afford that robust $20 burger.