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Author
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Topic: Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood 70mm/35mm release?
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 07-13-2019 05:23 AM
quote: Bobby Henderson
The fall-off of 70mm print production by distributors in the late 1990's is not all the fault of the distributors. The movie theater chains helped create that situation. They goofed big time in a lot of their new stadium seated megaplex sites by not installing any 70mm capability in their giant screen houses. The theater chains removed the necessary infrastructure for showing 70mm.
I remember it quite differently. And I put the blame 95% on the distributors, not the exhibitors. The distributors didn't want to strike 70mm prints anymore and therefore exhibitors stopped putting in the equipment if they weren't going to get the prints. An exhibitor isn't going to spend upwards of 3-4 times on projection equipment for something they aren't going to get. A 70mm projector was significantly more expensive than the 35mm counterpart, not merely double. Even in the heyday of 70mm, the number of 70mm projectors made was a tiny drop compared to 35mm.
From the studio's standpoint, once 65mm origination stopped happening, 70mm was all about the sound. Once digital 5.1 audio made it to 35mm, that was it, as far as the studios were concerned. Remember, the studios are judging their prints on relatively smallish screens. 70mm did nothing for them but introduce an optical blow up that lowered contrast. Studios also judge their movies on "EK" prints (off of camera original, except for the opticals), and the 70mm prints were at least one generation away from that so in a studio setting, the 70mm prints would look worse than their 35mm EK reference. It is a different world out there.
I saw 70mm equipped theatres denied prints because none were being made or perhaps such a limited run that only a small handful were being made for large markets.
Now you can probably blame the exhibitors for not complaining and DEMANDING (from people that will do what they want anyway) that they wanted 70mm for their largest screens and perhaps, the likes of AMC/Regal could have forced the issue. But when have they ever been about doing the right thing for quality's sake? They lead the way against masking in the digital era, for crying out loud.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Even a good 4K scan of a scope 35mm image retains the information. It's not that a 35mm frame suddenly grows more grains, because an anamorphic lens was used to compress the image. The problem is with the projection, where scope simply looses too much light and some vertical resolution.
You are incorrect on this one. 35mm Scope starts with more information than 4K can capture. 4K is about the resolution of 35mm 1.85, not scope. The scope frame is significantly taller and there aren't enough pixels to capture that at full resolution. 35mm gets to use all of that resolution and efficiently. On a proper scope screen where scope is the big format, the scope image is brighter than the 1.85 image despite scope being larger because it is a more efficient format with the space available.
We would be better served to have retained the concept of anamorphic projection for digital (and I have done so on several installations...both 2K and 4K).
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 07-13-2019 11:14 AM
quote: Steve Guttag
You are incorrect on this one. 35mm Scope starts with more information than 4K can capture. 4K is about the resolution of 35mm 1.85, not scope.
Sure, scope uses almost the full frame available on 4-perf 35mm. Still, there is an ongoing discussion about how much information there is in 4 perf 35mm. It also depends a lot on the type of film used and the process it took from camera to film, so it's not all that clear cut.
If you ask IMAX, there is sufficient "hidden" information between the grains to blow it up to 15perf 70mm... now, that's one nice fairy tale...
In reality, 4K is enough to come sufficiently close to the "human perceivable resolution" of 35mm film, both for flat and "scope-done-wrong". It will be difficult to do an unbiased A/B test though, since everybody of us will almost spot immediately if something is a digital or analog projection. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
I think we can all agree on the fact that scope is actually done wrong in DCI. What used to be the bigger format, now is essentially the format with less light and less resolution.
While anamorphic lenses solve the brightness issue, the resolution issue can only be solved by changing the DCI standard to allow for "anamorphic pixels" to be in the actual DCP.
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 07-13-2019 12:09 PM
quote:
Someday, if I ever encounter Harvey Weinstein, I will ask him if he ever regretted the money he blew on the 70mm Super Panavision release of The Hateful Eight, one of Quentin Tarantino's least successful movies. All those projectors and lenses that he scavenged and refurbished, the print costs, the logistics, for what? This thing wasn't exactly Lawrence of Arabia. The expenditure on the theatre level as well, between $40 - 80,000 per screen, I remember reading at the time. I hope they got some of it back.
This is one of those statements that REALLY misses the point and is more than deceptive.
Let's start with, H8 is currently ranked 6th on his list but has nominally the same amount of revenue as 4-6 with a significant drop to #7. In the world-wide gross it is #5. It is hardly is least successful or even in that group.
Reservoir Dogs is at the bottom for him but most QT fans would not put it down there in terms of their favorites.
Now let's look closer at H8. Can you or anyone say how much 70mm impacted the final gross?
With only 100-screens, it was ranked #10 on gross going up against the likes of Star Wars! Speaking of which Disney ensured that Star Wars gobbled up the largest and most appealing screens for H8 too and it still took in an average of $46K/screen on the opening weekend. That's not to shabby for an R rated film on the holidays going up against a franchise like Star Wars.
How much of that success was due to the 65/70mm production and the hoopla surrounding it? How many people that otherwise wouldn't have checked out a QT movie (he doesn't make the family fare and is known for "different") had it not been for UP-70mm?
The facts are, we have no way of knowing how much extra revenues that 70mm pulled in (if any, for that matter). We do know that it was a very profitable venture (the movie itself) including the 70mm investment. (if you could bring in $156M against a $44M investment, would you not do it every time? Remember too, TWC owned the equipment (until they sold it to WB) so they could have taken advantage of that investment again, had political/human issues had not arisen. So some of their investment was recouped while another studio took advantage of it.
Dunkirk ranks as #5 for Nolan...bringing $525M against $100M. And again, we have no way of knowing how much of that gross can be attributed to the use of 65/70mm other than those theatres running it in 70mm tend to do better than those that don't (is has traditionally been a 5:1 ratio).
QT has made profitable movies and H8 is not exception. If QT says he wants to shoot on film or shoot on 65mm or release in 70mm as terms of his contract, he can do so. Studios want to make money. They'll make no money off of QT if they don't handle his movie so it is there choice, more so than the studio dictating. In the case of QT (and other prominent directors), you are banking on their reputation and past performance.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 07-13-2019 12:54 PM
It's anecdotal to say, but I went out of my to watch 65mm-originated films like H8, Dunkirk and Interstellar in 70mm. I remember a packed house when I watched H8 in Oklahoma City.
quote: Steve Guttag
I remember it quite differently. And I put the blame 95% on the distributors, not the exhibitors. The distributors didn't want to strike 70mm prints anymore and therefore exhibitors stopped putting in the equipment if they weren't going to get the prints. An exhibitor isn't going to spend upwards of 3-4 times on projection equipment for something they aren't going to get. A 70mm projector was significantly more expensive than the 35mm counterpart, not merely double. Even in the heyday of 70mm, the number of 70mm projectors made was a tiny drop compared to 35mm.
Yes, there were plenty of people on the distribution side who didn't want to spend extra money making 70mm prints. Dolby even marketed Dolby Digital on 35mm as a cost cutting (for the distributors) replacement for 70mm. With three different digital sound formats becoming rapidly available for 35mm in the 1993-95 time frame there was no need for 70mm blow-up prints anymore. But not everyone thought that way. Some people did see a real benefit in making 5/70mm prints for really big theater screens.
While there was plenty of opposition to making 70mm prints on the distribution side, the commercial movie theaters sealed the fate of 5/70mm on their own. They did it themselves when they launched the stadium seated theater building boom and made it a totally 35mm-only affair. Then they closed down just about all the older theaters that were equipped for 70mm. If anyone on the distribution side had a change of heart and wanted to book 70mm prints in some giant screen stadium seated theater houses they could no longer do so. At least not until IMAX came along.
There wasn't a lot of theaters equipped with 70mm, but I think there were enough systems to go around for a giant screen house in a new $30 million megaplex to get a 70mm system. The Dallas-Fort Worth market was ground zero for the stadium seated theater boom. Out of new stadium seated theaters getting built there in the late 1990's maybe half a dozen or so houses had these giant sized screens. There were more than that many older screens there equipped for 70mm.
quote: Steve Guttag
Now you can probably blame the exhibitors for not complaining and DEMANDING (from people that will do what they want anyway) that they wanted 70mm for their largest screens and perhaps, the likes of AMC/Regal could have forced the issue. But when have they ever been about doing the right thing for quality's sake? They lead the way against masking in the digital era, for crying out loud.
I pretty much blame IMAX for inspiring the trend of building theater screens with no masking, curtains, etc. Taller, common width screens go along with it -with most movies in digital TechniScope, letter-boxed on the screen just like watching a letter-boxed movie on the TV at home. Perhaps if the first giant-sized screens in stadium seated theaters had any 70mm capability it might have taken away IMAX' opportunity to goof up how modern theater screens are configured.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Sure, scope uses almost the full frame available on 4-perf 35mm. Still, there is an ongoing discussion about how much information there is in 4 perf 35mm. It also depends a lot on the type of film used and the process it took from camera to film, so it's not all that clear cut.
It's pretty clear cut to me considering the digital approach to 4/35mm in post production deletes half the image. On 35mm 'scope was the biggest, highest resolution format. In d-cinema the 'scope format is the low resolution format. It has the least pixel count. I even think the movie studios choose 'scope for nearly every release because it has the smallest pixel count. It's cheaper to render in post production. We're still stuck with 2K for most movies for the same reason: cost cutting. All the major advancements in computing technology are only being used to render 2K even faster and cheaper.
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 07-13-2019 03:16 PM
Bobby,
Again, i think your facts are wrong in terms of what the pressures were on the Distributor/Exhibitor.
Exhibitors put in stadium seating (like they are putting in recliners) because that is what the audience wanted. Exhibitors are relatively simple people. They want to make money in a business that seems to go out of its way to deny them profits so their customers can bitch about how much they charge for sugar water and popcorn while they drive away in their Rolls Royces back to their mansions (they put up such good acts about such things).
They didn't put in 70mm because there were NO PRINTS BEING MADE or if there were, they were in such limited supply that unless you were in a major market, you weren't going to get one of the 5-15 prints. It is a pretty big gamble to spend a lot more money with no return on the investment. How many extra tubs of popcorn do you have to sell to cover the extra cost of a 70mm installation over a 35mm one? (Hint: A lot!).
If 70mm was available, exhibitors would have kept putting it in for their larger screens but they would want to know that there is a reasonable chance of being able to use it. Remember, I've been on the dealer and exhibitor side of this industry for a long time and particularly during that era. I got to see the forces involved on putting in/exhibiting 70mm. There aren't many people more of a fanboy for 70mm than I. I worked at a prominent 70mm venue for close to 18-years in a major market and the number of 70mm titles, which used to consume our screen 80-90% of the time drop to practically never unless there was the odd revival or one of the aforementioned low print run titles. Lesser theatres simply would never have the opportunity to get such a print and therefore would be foolish to buy 70mm equipment. If there were 70mm prints available, I have no doubt those exhibitors interested would change out the equipment to put 70mm in and move the 35mm equipment to another screen or new build.
As for masking. IMAX back when it was IMAX always filled their screen. As such, it was masked. It is only when they wanted a piece of the Hollywood pie did they present movies in a non-masked fashion.
Note, IMAX is another reason that the studios stopped 5/70 releases...they had a means to put out a large format version of the title.
Some exhibitors put in 8/70 systems to get from under the IMAX monopoly only to get burned by studios (Disney, in particular) to cease supporting the format. There has to be a degree of trust between the exhibitor and the studio on specialty formats (of which 70mm is included) because exhibitors are buying equipment based on the belief (and nothing more) that the studios will release in the format. There is no penalty to the studio for abandoning any format.
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Mark Louis
Film Handler
Posts: 21
From: Austin, TX USA
Registered: Oct 2018
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posted 07-13-2019 04:28 PM
Sorry for the delay. Busy with new venue openings and preparing for the most 35mm screens of any exhibitor for OUaTiH. Even though we still employ projectionists, finding enough 35mm talent to cover 3 to 5 reel to reel shifts a day for at least 2 weeks has been a challenge
quote: Bobby Henderson
Mark, do you know any details about where Alamo might be building new locations? I've heard rumors they were going to open a theater in the Oklahoma City area (specifically in the new Chisholm Creek development). But I've seen no official word about it from Alamo on their web site.
Just opened Westminster, CO and LA in two weeks. Followed by Manhattan, Staten Island, Orlando, several in Texas, St. Louis, Washington DC, Arizona and North Carolina. No official word on Oklahoma yet.
quote: Geoff Jones
Why wasn't a film projector installed in the "Big Show" auditorium at Alamo's new Westminster, Colorado location?
We of course can run 35mm over at Littleton and seriously considered it for Westminster in the PLF house and another smaller auditorium. Still under consideration but I did change some specs for our PLF and decided to just concentrate on D-cinema for now.
quote:
Go Alamo Brooklyn!
Brooklyn is cooking for sure! OUaTiH will be there in 35mm and we're working on getting another 70mm print from Sony for that run. We'll have 9 more D-Cinema screens there by mid 2020.
quote: Mark Lensenmayer
ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD will be shown in 35mm at the Gateway Film Center in Columbus, OH.
Hi Mark. I used to service the Gateway as a Tech years ago. Good to know you're still humming along!
quote: Stephan Shelley
New Mission has Century JJs, CP650 daisy chained into a Trinnov Ovation 1, DTS XD10 (I think), silver screen. No platter just reel to reel.
This is correct. The silver screen is an MDI HGA and I like the 2D image quality so much compared to other silver screens that I contracted MDI to use the same 3 year old paint formula for our PLF houses. Never my preference to install silver screens but we need to be able to offer 3D in these premium houses. In smaller auditoriums where we use Barco instead of Sony, I'm going with Active 3D so I can have a white screen. Still working on how best to keep the glasses from walking out the door.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Those theaters who actually follow their policy and do have the guts to effectively warn and eject people should also clearly advertise it. At the very least it would help me to choose the correct theater.
We try..... Alamo Drafthouse Don't Talk or Text
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Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 07-13-2019 04:34 PM
quote: Steve Guttag
if you could bring in $156M against a $44M investment
If you are going to A) accuse me of deception and B) convince me that I am wrong then you had better be more forthcoming about those numbers and what they mean.
A $156,000,000 worldwide gross is NOT a $156,000,000 worldwide NET returned to the studio. You will need to reduce that number by about 25-30% to cover the exhibitor's cut, and I honestly hope it was more than that considering the spending that some theaters did to cover their costs and the sheer annoyance of having to deal with this thing (like putting in a projector, schlepping a fucking 400lb. Anvil case to the booth with the print and paying an operator for the run, although I hope that Brad and Emma et.al. made some extra cash on the deal). In the same way, $44,000,000 was the production cost, the "negative cost" in industry lingo, literally the cost to take the film from nothing to a duplicatable negative. It does not include the cost for prints, advertising and exploitation, which, on a worldwide basis would have been an additional 75 - 80%, and which in the case of The Hateful Eight would not have included the additional dubious and possibly wasteful costs of the whole Ultra-Panavision thing. So on a realistic basis you are talking about $80 million against a return of maybe $110 million, give or take. It doesn't matter what its opening weekend did, or what its per-screen average was, or what it did against Star Wars. As far as its total box-office, it was only a moderate success, and, yes, low for Tarantino.
quote: Steve Guttag
The facts are, we have no way of knowing how much extra revenues that 70mm pulled in (if any, for that matter)
No. No, we don't know, do we? And that means my original question is still valid. Was it worth it?
I'll grant you that in one sense it might have been. If you recall, the screenplay for The Hateful Eight was leaked on-line quite far in advance of the production, and I suppose that it became necessary to find another angle to exploit what would have been a puerile, trivial and frankly racist picture in order to save it. So, brainstorm! Make it in an obscure cinema process and turn it into some sort of "event". It didn't matter that the picture was little more than a three-hour version of the campfire scene from Blazing Saddles with gunfire instead of farting, you could see the guys nuts get blown off in ULTRA!PANAVISION!!70MM!!! It sucked me in, I held off on seeing it until I was in L.A. near the Arclight on Sunset.
But that's me. Like Bobby here, I have been known to travel for exceptional or unusual presentations. What about everybody else? I have an idea that anyone who truly wanted to see the picture would have seen it one way or another, but maybe a small percentage more may have fallen for the 70mm thing. So I repeat my original question to Harvey W.: was the UltraPanivision release worth what must have been a considerable outlay and reduction in profit?
It looks like Sony/Columbia doesn't think so.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 07-13-2019 05:10 PM
quote: Mark Ogden
It didn't matter that the picture was little more than a three-hour version of the campfire scene from Blazing Saddles...
Actually, the plot structure is very, very, similar to that of a British murder mystery novel published in 1939:
...which might at least partly explain your comments about the racism in H8 (though I suspect that the real explanation is more simple: Tarantino has a bit of a Touretty streak when it comes to the n-word, and doesn't really get that after about the 100th utterance of it, the viewer is no longer shocked, but just bored and irritated).
Even in 1939, that title was considered problematic, and the book was hastily renamed And Then There Were None, and reprinted.
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 07-13-2019 05:12 PM
I'm quite aware of gross versus net costs.
As I recall, on the H8 the cost of showing the movie (projectionists, technicians for install, projectors) was covered by the studio. Exhibitors would never fork over enormous sums for a 1-off. About all the exhibitor had to do was provide the space for the projector with port(s) and yes, ensure they could get the print in the booth). The only ones that paid for the projectionist, that I'm aware were the reel-to-reel houses that also didn't get the free equipment (except lenses...which technically were on loan)...so less money for TWC.
The opening weekend give one a sense of what the 70mm venues did relative to the others since they had an exclusive and even when it went wide what the take/screen was can give an indicator of the draw of 70mm versus just seeing the movie somewhere. Naturally, it would be better to have the numbers of the 70mm venues as compared to the 35mm to see how big a draw it was on this title. It wouldn't tell you how many EXTRA people you got to the theatre (you could merely be competing with yourself).
Was it worth it, not even TWC would know unless they could know how many people they drew in that they wouldn't have without the 70mm prints and how those that saw it or heard about it and how that affected their home viewing choice (did they buy the Blu-ray/pay for streaming). You'd need that information to make a better calculation as to the 70mm value.
I think you'll be waiting a long time (read never) to find out from Harvey. A better tell would have been had TWC continued and if they were to continue to release in 70mm (figure the business would continue to do things that made it more money)...but again, we won't know. We do know that WB thought enough about 70mm to buy the equipment from TWC and they too would have better knowledge of how the 70mm venues performed compared to others and any ripple effects of releasing in the format.
While it would be easy to show that the UP70 from shooting to presentation was a considerable outlay (and I strongly question the Ultra Panavision part as I didn't see it adding anything to movie and quite probably lowered its overall quality as compared to normal SP70 not to mention smaller images since most people had to reduce height, not gain width). You cannot declare it lost profits unless you can show that releasing in UP70 didn't bring in at least the money it cost. Neither you nor I have those numbers.
As for Columbia (Sony)...they struck 5 prints that we know about in 70mm of a 35mm (and 16mm and 8mm) origination movie. Why? As others have pointed out, it isn't for the sound. Picture wise, I think it will look better in commercial theatres than the 35mm prints. As for costs, they spent a fair amount of money to get those 5 prints since they had to pay to get the 65mm IN.
I strongly suspect that IF QT stated he was shooting in 65mm that Columbia/Sony would have still green lit the movie. And if that happened, the odds of a wide release in 70mm would have been likely. However, being shot in 35mm (primarily), what is the point of a 70mm release, by and large? The big venues will be all too happy to play it digitally. The 35mm venues will be able to play it in "film" for the warm and fuzzies.
I never got the impression that QT was the 70mm crusader that Nolan and PTA are. He is a FILM guy, for sure but other than H8, when has he mentioned that he wanted to shoot in 65mm? And for a period piece, I could see him rationalizing shooting in lower formats to create a look that 65mm would destroy. Shooting in 65mm also alters one's needs in terms of lighting, depth of field and the physical space for the camera/equipment.
I just don't think you can draw conclusions about Sony's position on 70mm based on this title which, again, they are striking/stuck a handful of prints anyway for likely dubious benefits. I would presume that the venues that are getting them are known for their film projection and have rather largish screens...in which case, I can see 70mm to overcome typical projection systems trying to blow the image up that big and get enough light out there.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 07-13-2019 05:51 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
There wasn't a lot of theaters equipped with 70mm, but I think there were enough systems to go around for a giant screen house in a new $30 million megaplex to get a 70mm system. The Dallas-Fort Worth market was ground zero for the stadium seated theater boom. Out of new stadium seated theaters getting built there in the late 1990's maybe half a dozen or so houses had these giant sized screens. There were more than that many older screens there equipped for 70mm.
The situation regarding 70mm was even more dire in Europe than in the U.S. As I told you, I worked for two venues, both equipped for 70mm, but we simply never got one of the blowup prints.
I remember that back in 2001, Touchtone made a big deal about Pearl Harbor getting a widespread 70mm release. I still remember us upgrading one of the rooms with a DTS 70mm timecode reader, because this would be the FIRST non-repertoire 70mm movie we would get in more than a decade and a half...
In the end, there would be no 70mm print, what we got wasn't even the Technicolor IB version of the print that was also promised as a compensation for not being able to deliver on the 70mm blowup.
The studios simply didn't care. I remember it was James Cameron himself who paid for a dozen or so 70mm blowups of Titanic. That was the biggest release in the 90s and the most successful movie ever until then...
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 07-13-2019 06:06 PM
I liked it that QT chose to film the The Hateful Eight entirely in 5/65mm. But I hated his choice of Ultra Panavision. The choice seemed like a stunt or ego-driven challenge just to see if he could pull it off. But the choice completely ignored how modern movie theaters are designed. Most have taller, common width screens where ordinary 'scope is shown letter-boxed. There are very few common height, Cinerama style theaters in operation. I would have been much happier with a regular 5/70mm show, and slightly taller image than regular 'scope. That would have been a lot better.
Then there was the movie itself. My biggest complaint about H8 is that most of the movie took place in a freaking log cabin and that it was just talk talk talk talk talk. The damned thing could have been a stage play. It's not the kind of thing that lends itself to 70mm. There was very little in the way of big scenic vistas in that movie.
quote:
Exhibitors put in stadium seating (like they are putting in recliners) because that is what the audience wanted. Exhibitors are relatively simple people. They want to make money in a business that seems to go out of its way to deny them profits so their customers can bitch about how much they charge for sugar water and popcorn while they drive away in their Rolls Royces back to their mansions (they put up such good acts about such things).
They didn't put in 70mm because there were NO PRINTS BEING MADE or if there were, they were in such limited supply that unless you were in a major market, you weren't going to get one of the 5-15 prints. It is a pretty big gamble to spend a lot more money with no return on the investment. How many extra tubs of popcorn do you have to sell to cover the extra cost of a 70mm installation over a 35mm one? (Hint: A lot!).
Just to be clear, I was not suggesting 70mm equipment could have been installed into just any theater. I'm talking about major market locations that did get a lot of 70mm prints in the past, such as Dallas.
This chicken vs egg situation on 5/70mm could have been solved with some conversations between exhibitors building these new megaplex sites and the distributors. They might have been able to persuade distributors to book a 5/70mm print at a certain location if the exhibitor told them the house has a giant 80' wide screen too big for 4/35mm imagery to look good, but several hundreds seats with a ticket sales capacity far higher than so many ordinary 35mm houses with just a couple hundred seats.
70mm is a very serious investment, but repeating the earlier point, these chains already owned quite a few 70mm systems in theaters they were closing. Why couldn't they have simply re-used those existing 70mm systems they already owned? In Dallas a new megaplex would open and the same chain would shut down an old 70mm-equipped theater right around the same time. It wasn't like they would have to buy all brand-new 70mm-related equipment. Theater chains have moved plenty of equipment from theaters they closed over to other still operational theaters lots of times. Here in Lawton our old (now closed) Carmike 8 theater went from 2 DTS-equipped houses to having all 8 equipped for DTS out of that scenario. Carmike wasn't just going to throw that gear in the dump.
quote: Steve Guttag
As for masking. IMAX back when it was IMAX always filled their screen. As such, it was masked. It is only when they wanted a piece of the Hollywood pie did they present movies in a non-masked fashion.
And that's exactly the model the theater chains copied with their own big-screen premium theater concepts. They chose to imitate the look of an IMAX house without having to pay for that IMAX branding. The practice spread from there, but IMAX is the one who launched the trend.
quote: Mark Louis
Just opened Westminster, CO and LA in two weeks. Followed by Manhattan, Staten Island, Orlando, several in Texas, St. Louis, Washington DC, Arizona and North Carolina. No official word on Oklahoma yet.
Well that's too bad. I was hoping Alamo would get a location built in Oklahoma sometime soon. Flix Brewhouse is opening a location in Oklahoma City off the Broadway Extension freeway this fall. I don't know how they compare to Alamo Drafthouse though.
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Mark Louis
Film Handler
Posts: 21
From: Austin, TX USA
Registered: Oct 2018
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posted 07-13-2019 06:57 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
I liked it that QT chose to film the The Hateful Eight entirely in 5/65mm. But I hated his choice of Ultra Panavision. The choice seemed like a stunt or ego-driven challenge just to see if he could pull it off. But the choice completely ignored how modern movie theaters are designed. Most have taller, common width screens where ordinary 'scope is shown letter-boxed. There are very few common height, Cinerama style theaters in operation. I would have been much happier with a regular 5/70mm show, and slightly taller image than regular 'scope. That would have been a lot better.
The vast majority of our screens that are over 35' wide are native scope screens and all of our screens have movable masking. My PLF spec is a minimum 66' wide screen that must be native scope. At 28 Liberty in Manhattan, we're in the basement of the building and we're so limited by height that all of our screens are under 35' wide. However, we decided to go with native scope screens anyway and have the masking curve back and lay flat against the side walls when open. This way we don't have to leave room for masking to stack on the sides so the wrapped screens can go wall to wall to give the best image possible in a small auditorium, even with native scope screens.
And to put some hard numbers to the question of whether 35mm/70mm is worth it, we crunched quite a few in making the decision to put OUaTiH on so many 35mm screens. Here's the most telling: Looking back at Dunkirk, Hateful 8 and Roma, only 9% of our shows were 35mm or 70mm compared to DCP, but the 35mm/70mm accounted for 38% of our ticket sales for those three features.
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