There used to be a time when just hearing the phrase ‘IMAX’ would invoke thoughts of school excursions to watch nature or science documentaries. Today, not so much, with IMAX now associated with cutting edge filmmaking and boundary pushing directors like Peter Jackson, James Cameron and Christopher Nolan. It’s a notable departure from how the theatre giant – quite literally – had become globally known for all those staggering docos. However, this new association and reality is incredibly close to how it started out.
Making its debut at EXPO ’67 in Montreal, Canada, IMAX was the brainchild of experimental filmmakers Graeme Ferguson, Roman Kroiter and Robert Kerr. Their vision was to create the first multi-screen experience, which they achieved by syncing nine film projectors to make a large screen installation that was viewed as one cohesive moving image. Just three years later, they launched, in earnest, with IMAX Technology at EXPO ’70 in Japan, complete with some of the traits that would go on to define it more than 50 years later like the gently curved screens, projector system and strategic stadium seating so the image entirely fills your field of vision. With the first permanent IMAX theatre opening in Toronto in 1971, it would seem like its place in the cinema landscape was set in stone. Yet it took until the naughts for IMAX’s premise to line up with its execution and – importantly – viewers.
IMAX – short for maximum image – initially became synonymous with size. They built the biggest screens in the world, with viewers positioned inside an immersive film space that was carefully designed for the maximum experience. It used 70mm film run through the projector horizontally, creating a surface area that was nine times larger than the 35mm format and three times larger than 70mm film projected vertically. “IMAX and IMAX Dome projectors are the most advanced, highest precision and most powerful projectors ever built,” said chief projectionist Rene Sørensen of Tycho Brahe Planetarium and Omnimax Theatre in Denmark. “The key to their superior performance and reliability is the unique Rolling Loop film movement system, used in no other projector. The Rolling Loop was invented by Ron Jones from Australia.” Yet just because something is technically the best, that doesn’t mean it will and can find an audience. That was one of the largest struggles for IMAX as theatres began to pop up all over the world and engineers worked out how to outfit pre-existing theatres with IMAX Technology.
When the company went public in 1994, they were renowned for jaw-dropping documentaries and science programming. They could see the potential for an expansion into narrative filmmaking, but in the words of IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond it “was a classic chicken-and-egg problem”.
“Studios didn’t want to film a movie in our format (which required bulky, expensive cameras and lots of film) unless thousands of theatres were equipped to show IMAX films,” he told Harvard Business Review. “Theatre owners wouldn’t convert to IMAX until many more IMAX films were available … To increase the number of IMAX films available, at one point in the 1990s we even tried producing movies ourselves. It didn’t work.”
In 1998, they made a film called T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous hoping to capitalise on the mainstream appeal of dinosaurs at the time as the Jurassic Park and Godzilla franchises continued to gain momentum, while still appealing to the “science museum crowd”. It was a flop with both. Despite the success of Apollo 13 (1995) – which was digitally remastered into the format – that film proved to be the exception rather than rule.
The breakthrough came in 2001, when an IMAX computer scientist established an algorithm that would convert existing movies into IMAX specifications, with IMAX fronting the bill on conversions and negotiating a per centage of the back-end profits with studios instead. The push to digital also helped, meaning costly film stock became less of a concern.
One of IMAX’s biggest champions was filmmaker Christopher Nolan, who had been wanting to shoot in the format for 15 years before successfully being able to do so with key sequences in The Dark Knight (2008), including the Joker’s opening bank robbery. It was the first time a feature had been shot in the format – even partially – with the remaining sequences converted. The film’s ground-breaking success commercially and critically helped solidify IMAX as a technology sought after by filmmakers wanting to push cinematic scale and scope. After working with IMAX on a series of documentaries, James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) was converted to the format in a move that Gelfond described as pivotal. “The moment I knew we’d make it came in December, when Avatar opened,” he said. “The IMAX version was a global phenomenon. In China there were six-hour lines to get in, and scalpers were charging $100 a ticket. Avatar did $250 million globally on IMAX screens; because we shared in that revenue, it was a financial turning point for us.”
When Nolan’s Batman follow-up The Dark Knight Rises (2012) came a few years later, it broke records globally: including in Australia with the theatre chain’s website crashing as fans rushed to purchase tickets. IMAX screenings of the film were sold out at the Sydney and Melbourne venues for the entire first month if release. The number of filmmakers willing to work within the format and the scale of those films has only grown with a better understanding of the technology: not to mention examples of it being executed successfully. From The Hunger Games (2012–15) and The Hobbit (2012–14) franchises, to both of JJ Abrams’ Star Trek (2009–16) and Star Wars (2015–19) series reboots, it’s clear IMAX will endure not just because of the size of its screens, but because of the creatives who know how to utilise them.