Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: What movie had the widest release in 70mm?

This is topic What movie had the widest release in 70mm? in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=000660

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 01-30-2002, 07:22 PM:

My guess is Brainstorm. In the greater Los Angeles area, it seemed like almost every theater with 70mm capability booked that movie, in 70mm. Was it like that across the country?

------------------
- dave
Avoid the meadow...

[anyone know of an online database of this kind of info?]

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 01-30-2002, 08:05 PM:

We did the print checks for that picture in 70mm.
I ran so many reels of "Brainstorm" for grading.
Later I found out MGM junked around 20+ prints
in 70mm.

This was a great show at the Cary Grant theatre
on the Sony lot.

I was based in Los Angeles at the time.

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 01-30-2002, 08:36 PM:

According to the excellent list compiled by Michael Coate And William Kallay for Widescreen Review (post- Dr. Hayes-era), the record is held by INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM with over 240 70mm engagements.

BRAINSTORM had more than 100 engagements.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 01-30-2002, 08:40 PM:

In Toronto the widest was probably StarTrek voyage home with 15 prints in toronto alone

Posted by Aaron Haney (Member # 747) on 01-30-2002, 09:06 PM:

Mark, I have a saved copy of that Widescreen Reivew article. It used to be online. Do you know what happened to it?

243 70mm prints, just for that one movie! The article also says that year (1984) was the year with the most 70mm prints in circulation (more than 600 prints). Boy do I miss those days...

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 01-30-2002, 09:09 PM:

I subscribe to Widescreen Review. Guess I need to figure out how to use the "subscriber-only" area of their web site.

So when all those 70mm prints went back to the distributor, were they treated the same as 35mm? I mean were they given any special inspection or archival, or are they considered just so much junk?

Anyone ever seen a 70mm double-feature? I did, once. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, with Star Trek 5 (I think it was 5). Interesting observation: Indiana Jones looked WAY sharper than Star Trek. It was like Indy got the "A" treatment during the blowup or at the lab, and Star Trek got the "B" treatment.

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 01-31-2002, 12:42 AM:

Twice the Case Western Reserve University Film Society ran four 70mm prints as part of their annual science fiction film marathon. In 1986 they ran Dune, WarGames, Quest for Fire, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. In 1988 they ran Cocoon, Clan of the Cave Bear, Altered States, and Outland. Plus on the Tuesday before the marathon they played a 30fps print of Oklahoma and the weekend after the marathon they played The Untouchables. That was 6 prints in 11 days.

Sniff, those were the days.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 01-31-2002, 12:17 PM:

When I was at Pacific's Picwood in the early 80's.
We ran more 70mm than any other theatre in Los Angeles, and
we did the business. The booking department would try to
put a 70mm print in the house. We had "Apocalypse Now" for
6 months, this was after the Cinerama Dome moved it over.
Before we got "Wolfen" in 70mm, we got "Apocalypse Now"
back for 2 weeks. We had double features of "Alien" & "Close Encounters", "Jazz Singer" & "Zoot Suit" in Sensurround Plus, "Sleeping Beauty" & "Black Hole", "Fame" & "Divine Madness". "Empire Strikes Back" and "Raiders of the Lost
Ark" each for a few weeks then doubled up. Than we sold
out for 3 1/2 months with "ET". The Picwood was a 950 seat
single screen theatre in West Los Angeles. Over on the old
palaces along Wilshire Blvd. in Beverly Hills my friends ran
some of the longest double features like "My Fair Lady" &
"Camelot", "Hello Dolly" & "West Side Story", plus a few more
long titles all in 70mm. Every year these theatres would play
like clock work in 70mm, prints of "Gone With The Wind",
"Sound of Music", "My Fair Lady"..... The best one I saw was
at The Pacific's Warner Beverly Hills. It was "Patton" in 70mm
and "The Longest Day" in 4 track Mag. Great Show ):

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 01-31-2002, 12:42 PM:

Some links:
http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/newsletters/reel/december98/pppp.shtml
http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/newsletters/reel/march99/pytlak.shtml
http://hjem.get2net.dk/in70mm/magazine/magazine_index.htm
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/lobby.htm
http://www.widescreenreview.com/archive/issuedvd.html (Coate and Kallay article)

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Aaron Haney (Member # 747) on 01-31-2002, 01:37 PM:

What I was talking about was that the Coate and Kallay article used to be available online to anyone, even to non-subscribers of Widescreen Review. The database of 70mm films was also onine and searchable. A couple of months ago, it disappeared. The URL was:

http://db.widescreenreview.com/theatrical/70mmartcl.htm

It seems to be gone now. Does anyone know where it went? Did Widescreen Review decide they wanted to make it a pay-only thing?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 01-31-2002, 02:27 PM:

The link I provided offers the issue the article is in for sale:
http://www.widescreenreview.com/archive/issuedvd.html
WideScreen Review Back Issues

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 01-31-2002, 08:45 PM:

The 70mm article from Widescreen Review and the database are now in the subscriber only section. I think they changed it when they moved to the subscriber only site.

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 02-01-2002, 01:08 AM:

There are the 70mm lists at Thomas Hauerslev's Xperymints.

70mm lists

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 02-01-2002, 06:22 PM:

quote:
In Toronto the widest was probably StarTrek voyage home with 15 prints in toronto alone

Toronto was definitely a huge market for 70mm, perhaps among the top three or four markets in North America. For "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" in the Southern California market, there were seventeen 70mm engagements. In the latter weeks of the run, at least six additional theaters that I'm aware of played prints that had been moved-over from the initial batch of theaters that booked the movie.

------------------

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 02-01-2002, 06:59 PM:

quote:
My guess is Brainstorm. In the greater Los Angeles area, it seemed like almost every theater with 70mm capability booked that movie, in 70mm.

There were 13 opening day engagements of "Brainstorm" that I'm aware of for the L.A. area, with four additional 70mm runs added when the film had its expanded nationwide release a few weeks later. I believe there were over 100 70mm runs throughout the country.

Prior to "Brainstorm" the most 70mm engagements for one release in Southern California was "Return Of The Jedi" (18).

Post "Brainstorm" (in L.A.):

25 engagements of "2010"

24 engagements of "Dick Tracy" (including a few with CDS sound)

There were 23 70mm prints of "Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom," including 70mm prints for all three screens of Mann's Chinese and two prints at the Orange Cinedome.

Other films with more than a dozen 70mm prints for the L.A. area that I'm aware of include "Cocoon," "Young Sherlock Holmes," "Aliens," "Star Trek III," "Star Trek IV " (which included the first commercial screenings of the Dolby Stereo SR format at two theaters), "Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade" (with the only known advertised "split surround" format runs in Hollywood and Westwood -- there were others; they just were never advertised), "Far And Away," and (who would have guessed) "Hoffa."

The 70mm runs with the most prints throughout North America were "Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom," "2010," and "Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade," all with over 200 prints in circulation. I'd hate to have seen the lab bill for those runs(!), but the effort and expense was certainly worth it for quality-conscious moviegoers.

Those were the days! It's sad to think that the only 70mm we get today is the occasional retrospective screening or the IMAX/Large-Format versions of 70mm. As nice as it is to have an opportunity to see something like "Beauty And The Beast" in Large Format, it's sickening to think about the cluelessness of the distribution arms of the studios and the exhibitors who cannot grasp the reasoning for keeping 5-perf 70mm alive as a viable release format. It would have made more sense, in my opinion, to have released "Beauty And The Beast" in "conventional" 5-perf 70mm rather than 8- or 15-perf 70mm. Converting "conventional" movies to IMAX or, worse, showing 35mm prints on IMAX screens is all marketing, nothing more, nothing less.

Michael Coate
Widescreen Review Magazine

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 02-01-2002, 07:22 PM:

quote:
What I was talking about was that the Coate and Kallay article used to be available online to anyone, even to non-subscribers of Widescreen Review. The database of 70mm films was also onine and searchable. A couple of months ago, it disappeared. The URL was:
http://db.widescreenreview.com/theatrical/70mmartcl.htm
It seems to be gone now. Does anyone know where it went? Did Widescreen Review decide they wanted to make it a pay-only thing?

There are several items of possible interest to 70mm enthusiasts on the Widescreen Review site, including the article and film lists mentioned in this thread. There is also a recently completed section on 70mm exhibition in the Los Angeles area with listings of all of the known engagements along with the theaters they ran in. Unfortunately, those items are now located on the subscriber side of the Web site (it wasn't my decision). They are located in a section known as the "Theatrical Ographies" (dumb name, I know -- also not my decision!).

I'm not posting here to plug my work (the topic was already raised by others in the thread). Having said that, some of you might actually find the work worth paying for. If any subscribers are interested in any links to the sections, or have difficulty locating them, simply email me and I'll provide any requested information. An earlier version of the work is still available in the 2001 Special Edition print issue mentioned in an earlier post.

Michael Coate
Co-Author/Compiler
"Presented In 70mm"
"70mm In L.A."
Widescreen Review Magazine

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 02-01-2002, 07:26 PM:

quote:
For "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" in the Southern California market, there were seventeen 70mm engagements. In the latter weeks of the run, at least six additional theaters that I'm aware of played prints that had been moved-over from the initial batch of theaters that booked the movie.

Interestingly (or maybe not), Edwards moved a 70mm print of "Star Trek IV" from the Town Center Cinema in Costa Mesa to the El Toro 5, in only the 2nd week of its run. Seemed kind of odd (but probably not as odd as someone noticing that and writing about it now). The El Toro 5 (like many Edwards theaters) had a window looking into the booth that patrons could gawk through. It looked in on Screen #1, with the 70mm setup. When "Star Trek IV" was on the platter, it had been labeled by the staff "STAR TREK 4 - SCOPE - IN GLORIOUS 70MM 6-TRACK DOLBY". The El Toro 5 also ran "Cocoon" in 70mm and it was so cool I went to see it there 3 times. Gorgeous picture and sound. Those were the only 2 70mm engagements at that theater.

------------------
- dave
Avoid the meadow...

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-03-2002, 01:04 PM:

Anyone remember the "Dolby Megasound" advertisements with 70mm releases of films like "Outland"? That's actually one logo I don't have in my collection. I have a really nice Dolby Digital logo diagram in PDF form prepared by Dolby's Roger Dressler.

I remember some of those big 70mm print runs when I lived in New York. Gawd, in the summer of 1989 it seemed like if you threw a rock you would hit a theater playing "Indy III" in 70mm Dolby A. I watched it at the Loews Astor Plaza, one of the few places that had a 70mm Dolby SR print.

It is also curious how the advertising was sometimes inconsistent with the number of prints run. Take "Die Hard" for example. I remember the TV ads proclaiming "40 stories of adventure in 70mm six-track Dolby Stereo." New York had only one single print for the engagement (at the smallish Cineplex Odeon Baronet). Many large cities were given only 1 70mm print of that film. At least the show played 70mm outside of New York and Los Angeles, which is better than I can say for a lot of 70mm films. The broad 70mm print runs like "Indy III," "Dick Tracy" and "Hoffa" were all too rare.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 02-03-2002, 05:52 PM:

Mega Sound was a bass extension system used first on Altered States that had bas synthesier made by EvenTide Clockwork company. We had it at the University Theatre in Toronto with its CP100 but I cannot find any documantation on how the system worked
We had 12 of the used Sensurround subs for it

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 08-04-2002, 01:23 PM:

Bill Gabel wrote:

We had double features of "Alien" & "Close Encounters", "Jazz Singer" & "Zoot Suit" in Sensurround Plus, "Sleeping Beauty" & "Black Hole", "Fame" & "Divine Madness". "Empire Strikes Back" and "Raiders of the Lost
Ark" each for a few weeks then doubled up.

I've always been curious as to how exactly Sensurround Plus worked on Zoot Suit, and how it differed from Sensurround.

Bill Gabel wrote:

The best one I saw was
at The Pacific's Warner Beverly Hills. It was "Patton" in 70mm
and "The Longest Day" in 4 track Mag. Great Show ):

There seemed to be very RARE instances when 70 was run with 35 (Tora!Tora!Tora! with Vanishing Point at the Egyptian comes to mind.) Were there any special union contracts needed for a split double feature like this? Did the lamphouses get a refocus between the shows? Or were there four projectors at the theatre set-up? I remember three at the Egyptian.

BTW, the only 70mm double feature I ever saw was THE WIND AND THE LION and MAN OF LA MANCHA at the Royal in SF.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 08-04-2002, 01:55 PM:

John Harvey, a name some are familure with here, was a tech for the old company I used to work for years ago. He was telling me that when he ran Sleeping Beauty in 70mm, he also had to run a short subject cartoon with it that was 35mm. They were 20 min changeovers and when it changed overt to the first reel of Sleeping Beauty he had to change out from 35 to 70mm on the second machine to run the second reel. I think he said they were centuries or cinemacanicas. Not sure witch one.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 08-05-2002, 12:24 PM:

In a few of the major film palaces in Los Angeles, they had more
than two projectors. The Warner Beverly Hills had 4 projectors.
We had 2 Norelco DP70's and 2 Black Simplex XL's. They at one
time had a pair of VistaVision Century projectors. They also had
a pair of followspots too. This theatre ran carbon arc, it had no
platters. This theatre was one of the Best presentation houses in
Los Angeles, in it's day. As for special pay. If you where running
a Road Show House (which is two shows nightly and matinees on Wed,
Sat & Sun) in Los Angeles the contract was $50.00 per performation.
But during the 70's, those big film palaces in Beverly Hills
(Warner Beverly Hills, Fox Wilshire, Loew's Beverly) they would run
double bills of films. As the Road Show films became fewer and fewer
, the chains would book past Roadshow 70mm films. Some times it was
a 70mm and 35mm double, depending on the theatre. Because as part of
the contract the projectionist got alittle more to run 70mm, on a
regular city or screening run. Back in the mid 90's, I ran a Disney
double feature at Pacific's Crest theatre in Westwood. I ran "Beauty
and the Beast" in 70mm and "Aladdin" in 35mm SRD. They had the same
double at the El Capitan in Hollywood. But at the Crest we had a
Century JJ-3 and a Simplex XL projectors and two AW-3 platters. Yes
the Crest had two platters for a single screen theatre. The El Capitan
has two Century JJ-3's and one AW3 platter. At the Pacific's Hollywood
Pacific Tri-Plex theatre. If you were running 70mm downstairs. You
had to have a extra projectionist to run the twin upstairs. Most of the First Run Palaces in Los Angeles had three projectors. Two for
the feature and one for the trailers/short subjects.

Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 08-04-2013, 03:36 PM:

It has been 4017 days since the last post.

Posted by Terry Lynn-Stevens (Member # 7349) on 08-04-2013, 03:36 PM:

quote:
In Toronto the widest was probably StarTrek voyage home with 15 prints in toronto alone

quote:
Toronto was definitely a huge market for 70mm, perhaps among the top three or four markets in North America. For "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home"

To the both of you guys, I don't think it was possible for 15 prints.

Sheraton used one print for both screens.

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 08-07-2013, 11:02 AM:

You're misquoting me, Terry.

(And is 4,000 days a record for the longest time elapsed between comments in a thread???)

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 08-07-2013, 11:30 AM:

Not meaning to sound overly picky, but how are we defining 'widest release' - the number of prints made, number of theatres played, total number of revenue-earning screenings, etc.?

In terms of prints made, I'd take a wild guess that it would be a 1970s title - after 35mm mag had effectively died but before Dolby SVA became established, and so 70mm was the only way of getting multi-channel sound and thus essential for prestige, city centre venues. One of the early saturation-release blockbusters, e.g. Jaws or Star Wars, maybe?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 08-07-2013, 01:15 PM:

I was under the impression we were going by movie releases with the greatest number of 70mm prints in the inventory. Dick Tracy and Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade are certainly among the releases with the most 70mm prints.

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 08-07-2013, 01:29 PM:

The answer is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and was provided (over ten years ago!) as the third comment in this thread.

The Top 10, in the saturation-release era, if my numbers are correct, were:

1) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
2) 2010
3) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
4) Dick Tracy
5) Brainstorm
6) Far and Away
7) Return of the Jedi
8) Aliens
9) The Empire Strikes Back
10) Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

The roadshow era may have had some print runs that rivaled those but that era is more difficult to analyze because the prints weren't struck and distributed at once.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 08-07-2013, 05:27 PM:

Interesting. It would probably be completely impossible to compile the figures, but if it were possible, it would be interesting to compare that to the top ten list of the total number of people who saw a given movie in 70mm. My impression is that the saturation release and multiplex era resulted in a vastly increased number of prints (both 35 and 70) to be made of mainstream titles, but for each one to be seen by a smaller total audience, thanks to the new distribution and marketing techniques of the '70s and '80s depending on a movie opening everywhere and at once (TV ads etc.).

I've spent quite a bit of time going through the British trade press from the '20s to the '50s. One of the two major publications, Today's Cinema, regularly published boiled down versions of the press releases from distributors, which included how many prints of a title were being struck or imported for the UK release. What sticks in my mind is how small those figures were - 30 to 50 was typical for a top-budget 'A' picture. Figures I remember are 25 for The Iron Horse (including 10 that were hand tinted and toned for prestige bookings, the rest b/w), 18 for Gone With the Wind and 45 for The Big Sleep. Yet those films were seen by tens of millions of people, because each print did a 2-3 year release cycle from the grand opening at, say, the Odeon Leicester Square until finally ending up at the Bijou, Chipping Sodbury, opening in a new theatre every Monday and Thursday throughout that time.

Fast forward to the late 1980s, and a typical 35mm release print of a blockbuster does 3-5 weeks at a multiplex and then goes straight to landfill. My first job was at a typical suburban high street cinema in 1990, and it was very rare that we wouldn't get a new print of everything.

So, bringing this back to topic, I wouldn't be surprised if the roadshow 70mm releases of the 1950s were seen by just as many if not more people than the 70mm prints of the 1980s saturation releases, because the likelihood is that each individual print saw revenue-earning service over a much greater time period.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 08-07-2013, 08:34 PM:

quote: David Stambaugh
Anyone ever seen a 70mm double-feature?

Well, I ran many so someone did...just not me.

- Raiders of the Lost Ark plus Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

- 2001 A Space Odyssey plus Pink Floyd The Wall

- Alien plus Aliens

- The Untouchables plus Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

- Top Gun plus Raiders of the Lost Ark

- Pink Floyd The Wall plus Poltergeist plus Star Trek The Wrath Of Khan plus Top Gun (Midnight to Dawn)

There were others but I can't think of them right now.

Posted by Jock Blakley (Member # 6552) on 08-09-2013, 03:19 AM:

I'm told that in the '90s when we could still do mixed-distributor doubles we did a 70mm double of APOCALYPSE NOW and 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY.

We have at least two 70mm prints of 2010 THE YEAR WE MAKE CONTACT but I don't think we've ever double them with 2001. It's been awhile since we ran it at all, actually.

We could have done ALIEN + ALIENS and GREMLINS + GREMLINS 2 as a 70mm double except that nowadays we only have access to 70mm prints of the second film in each.