About four years ago – before people started to voice doubts about paying above the odds to develop a crippling headache while watching a murky blockbuster play out through a scratched-up pair of sunglasses – I wrote a piece arguing that Imax, and not 3D, would actually be the future of cinema.
With every passing year, that statement looks more accurate. Back in 2011, there were only 14 Imax cinemas in the UK. Twenty new screens have opened since then, with dozens more expected to arrive by 2016. This April, Cineworld alone announced that it would open eight new Imax screens across the country. More and more, audiences are realising that a certain type of blockbuster is best experienced on a scale that punches you in the chest and swamps your peripheries.
So I was right. But, with an almost self-parodying level of inevitability, I’m not altogether happy about it.
Because the thing about Imax is that it’s a treat. It’s an event. The BFI Imax in Waterloo sells out so quickly that you have to book tickets weeks in advance, like you would at a fancy restaurant. Before the film starts, someone shuffles to the front of the screen and formally welcomes you to the screening, like they would at a fancy wedding. Sometimes people even cheer at this bit, like they would at a fancy football match. And this is all because they know they’re about to see something special.
They’re going to see something so visually stunning that it’ll make them gasp, like they did when The Dark Knight first burst its margins and gave us a floor-to-ceiling panorama of Gotham City, or during one of Mission: Impossible IV’s breathtaking setpieces, or any of the parts of Interstellar that weren’t about Jessica Chastain nagging her dad in outer space. Imax, in short, is a format of pure spectacle.
The problem is, as the screens increase in number, the entry requirements for a film to be screened on one are slipping. When you go to an Imax, you ideally want to see something that’s either been shot on Imax cameras – like Christopher Nolan’s work, or the next Star Wars film – or something that deserves to be seen on the largest possible screen. You don’t want to see, for example, Taken 3.
Which is a shame, because Taken 3 will soon be appearing in Imax cinemas. Having seen the previous two Taken films, I’d posit that Taken 3 will not be a film you need to see on the largest possible screen. Unless you harbour an extremely bizarre fetish for Maggie Grace’s weird run, you will only really want to see Taken 3 at the local multiplex when you realise that you’ve seen everything else, or on your television’s VOD service when you’re a bit drunk, or downloaded on to your phone if you’re on a Ryanair flight.
Similarly, neither Dracula Untold or I, Frankenstein gained very much by being seen on a giant screen, yet both were digitally mastered for Imax release. As were Need for Speed, Divergent, the Robocop remake, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. None of these films were made with Imax screenings in mind, and you could argue that they’ve helped to devalue the overall Imax experience.
If it’s not careful, Imax could soon go the way of 3D, with hundreds of hacks chucking so many crappy conversions on to screens – just because it gives their ego a nice boost and makes them a little bit of extra money – that people get tired of the novelty.
I still love Imax. I’d still be incredibly reluctant to go and see a film like Interstellar on a non-Imax screen. The problem is that films as visually ambitious as Interstellar don’t come along very often. Imax, you’re still big. It’s the pictures that got small.
