Film prints in theaters

[MrsMiniver]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

I actually thought I was going to see Gravity in 70mm IMAX. The theatre I went to was equipped for it (or had been). But it played, as I wrote, in double-projector IMAX. I looked up at the booth from the auditorium to see whether the 70mm IMAX projector was still there, but I couldn't tell for sure since the booth was dark. But I think it's inevitable that 70mm IMAX is going to disappear. It will probably last a bit longer in museum IMAX theaters, because they keep recycling the same IMAX films and because they don't have the budgets to upgrade (downgrade?), but once Kodak stops making 70mm film or stops making movie print emulsions, it's going to be gone.

Do you mind if I ask you which IMAX theatre you saw it at? I knew going it was digital as I read that it was an "all digital" release. I also saw it at a theatre that was built for IMAX 70mm. I spoke with the manager he said film will never play again in theatre as they stripped out the projector. He said that the digital projectors were installed before The Dark Knight Rises and IMAX left them in for that one release and one release only.

I also found out from a current IMAX projectionist in a museum type theatre that they use new 70mm prints for their documentary film every six months. They have been running the same movie for 28+ years and are now on prints 64 and 64 of the movie, they have two different prints which are alternated every other hour as they cannot rewind in time for the next showtime. The heat from the IMAX projector fades the image over repeated use is what I was told. I was astonished at this information as I thought they would be using the prints for years, I guess not.

But you are right, IMAX 70mm is almost all but gone, the worlds largest IMAX screen in Australia has recently converted to digital...so sad