Star Trek IMAX-imises Box Office Takings
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Star Trek breaks IMAX box office record.
The highly acclaimed Hollywood reboot of Star Trek has set a new record at the IMAX box office.
The remake of the popular science fiction franchise, masterminded by Lost creator JJ Abrams, took a total of $79.2.million in its first weekend of viewing at US and Canadian box offices, IMAX screenings accounted for 11 per cent of that figure, totalling $8.5 million.
Chief executive of IMAX Richard Gelfond, was pleased with the figures, and the reputation IMAX screens are gaining with movie fans. Speaking to Reuters, Mr Gelfond said: “There’s no indication at all that the word of mouth is anything but positive”.
Star Trek was screened at 138 different IMAX theatres which overall was around two per cent of the total venues showing the movie. The previous record holder for IMAX box office takings was the return of Batman last year in the stunning sequel, The Dark Knight, for which the late Heath Ledger received a posthumous Oscar for his portrayal of the maniacal Joker.
However, amongst all this good news IMAX screens did come under a bit of criticism from actor Aziz Ansari, co-star of the NBC show Parks and Recreation. The actor wrote a rather heavy-handed blog where he criticised some of the smaller IMAX screens.
“These new ‘IMAX’ theaters are really just nice digital screens with good sound, but they are not IMAX, in that they don’t have the huge 72-foot (22-metre) gigantic screen which people would expect” he said.
Other IMAX fanatics have also voiced concerns about this but Mr Gelfond wasn’t convinced a re-branding was in order: “We wouldn’t put our name on it unless it lived up to the ‘Wow!’ factor and to the IMAX brand”.
That criticism is well-deserved.
But AMC/Regal won’t change anything until they think it’s going to hurt their bottom line.
Please sign my petition here to tell them we’re not going to put up with this crap:
http://bit.ly/liemaxpetition
IMAX screens of different size must be advertised to the public. When I see Star Trek I want the biggest screen out there.