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Theater owners complain about Interstellar film release
posted by
Michael Zoldessy
on
October 10, 2014 at 7:45 am
After theater owners struggled to convert to digital the past few years, Hollywood is doing an about face with an upcoming release strategy that will be favorable to those with film projectors. Christopher Nolan, poster boy for keeping film alive, has convinced studios to release his upcoming film “Interstellar” in various formats including 70mm, 35mm and IMAX 70mm. Those film formats will be distributed a few days early too.
While it’s great for the consumer, is passing another projection cost back to the exhibitor fair?
Read more in the Hollywood Reporter.
Comments (17)
Wish they had reached out to my theater – though we have Digital, we retained 35mm and specifically asked to play it on film, since we prefer it for both quality and reliability.
Good for Nolan. Keep it up. This whole push to digital was stupid and only the smart theatres retained some of their film equipment.
I just hope for a TAP-style quality control for this release. Theaters in my area kept their or recently opened with 35mm projectors like Angelika Mosaic, AFI Silver and E Street Cinema.
No movie theater in Morris County, NJ and northwest NJ is showing Interstellar in 35mm or even 70mm..it’s a shame.
moviebuff, the only theatre I saw in NJ gonna play it in 35 mm is the Lincoln Cinemas in Kearney
AMC already installed Sony 4k projector In Bay Plaza 13 in 2011 and it doesn’t make no cent to show the interstellar in 35mm and interstellar is gonna show on the big screen with a computer flash drive that is connecting through the Sony 4k digital projectors the only theater in downtown Manhattan are gonna to use the IMAX 70mm is the Lincoln Square 13 located on Broadway and W 66th Street New York, NY
When National Amusements made the conversion to Digital they made the decision to retain at least two film projectors in each location. Most if not all NA theatres have a film projector as well as Digital side by side in two auditoriums which includes 70mm in some locations.
Vito, is National Amusements going back into the Whitestone, Bronx site as part of the Paragon Outlet Mall project??? Heard that somebody may be opening a theater there…
The All Jersey site is gone…they demolish it but the sign is still there…the Amboy building is still there rotting…
Only 2 theatres in the state of North Carolina has 70mm presentation in their formats.
Charlotte: Park Terrace
Raleigh: Mission Valley
Charlotte’s Park Terrace which is over 50 years old is still the only moviehouse in the Carolinas capable of showing movies in 70mm-6 track stereophonic capability.
optimist008 I will ask about that and get back to you I should mention that retention of 70mm projectors at some NA locations does not apply to IMAX at City Center where the 70mm IMAX equipment was removed and replaced by Digital IMAX.
Vito,
Many thanks, am very curious about the Whitestone property..and the Bronx remains under screened at this time.
Optimistic, the man in charge of that area is out of town for a while but I should be speaking with him in a week or two if anyone knows what is up with that location he does.
Vito,
Many thanks, and again, the entire area remains under screened, so a monumental opportunity awaits a smart theater chain…
Lincoln Square 13 has a 70mm film IMAX projector,Empire 25 has a 70mm film IMAX projectors, 34th Street 14 has a 70mm film IMAX projectors and finally kips bay 15 has a 70mm film IMAX projectors to play the interstellar movie on the big screen in Downtown Manhattan however the AMC movie chain installed a Sony 4k projector to start the movie on the big screen. Back in the 1980’s and 1990’s AMC used the 35mm film projector to played the movie on the big screen and now these day they using computer projectors to play movies.There was a movie theater in parkchester that used the 35mm film projectors to play 7 movies on every 7 screens since they closed the Loews American theaters in the Bronx and got replace by a department store the AMC will have to reopen the fromer movie theater in parkchester by 2016 or 2017
Wrote to my local chain (Malco), knowing that prior to the digital conversion they used many Norelco 35/70 projectors. One of their VP’s responded that they are 100% committed to 2K digital projection. :( I can get 2K at home off of a Blu Ray a lot cheaper than going to a theatre, and far fewer jackholes to deal with. Too bad, because all in all Malco is a quality chain that maintains their properties and when they were all 35mm, their presentation was consistently excellent.