BIGGER IS BETTER IMAX AIMS TO PLAY TO LARGER AUDIENCES WITH REFORMATTED `APOLLO 13'.

Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff Writer

The films may have been big, but the audiences were getting small.

Faced with frustrated theater exhibitors complaining about the dearth of commercially appealing product, giant-screen pioneer IMAX Corp. is moving into the mainstream. It aims to slug it out at the box office with 35 mm movies with an unprecedented array of IMAX films that lean more toward popular entertainment than its hallmark education-oriented films, few of which have caused many lines to form at the ticket booth.

``Unlike commercial 35 mm that always has a constant source of product coming out, when we launch a film, we bank on that film doing solid business for two to three months,'' said Lynn Marschke, director of IMAX marketing for the Loews theater chain. ``If it comes out and it's not a good film, then we're stuck with it for two to three months.''

But no more. Among the new movies on tap is the popular 1995 film ``Apollo 13,'' first 35 mm live-action film to be transformed into the IMAX format. This first-ots-kind transformation, being done under the watchful eye of the film's director, Ron Howard, is achieved through new technology that allows for the movie to be enlarged for an IMAX screen without compromising picture quality.

``IMAX had a chicken-and-an-egg problem and because of technology, the egg has finally hatched,'' said Rich Gelfond, IMAX Corp. co-president. ``You couldn't afford to make the types of commercial films to compete with the multiplexes with the 35 mm films. Now, for very little cost, you can have spectacular IMAX experience with the best content from Hollywood.''

And it all couldn't be happening a moment too soon for exhibitors like Marschke who think a project like ``Apollo 13'' is the holy grail for the giant screen industry.

``This is the beginning of taking the technology and applying it to 35 mm releases,'' said Marschke. ``Now you can have 35 mm films, like `Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'' and ``The Lord of the Rings,'' that are bigger than life films. You will be able to take them and digitally reproduce them and (to get) a different kind of experience that you will pay a premium for.''

The Loews chain has two owned-and-operated IMAX theaters in New York and San Francisco and runs two theaters through partnerships located at Chicago's Navy Pier and Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles. A second IMAX theater in Los Angeles opened just a few months ago at The Bridge Cinema de lux.

``It's just amazing to see all the product that's out there,'' said Michael Turner, director of IMAX operations at The Bridge. ``There have been some challenges because the product hasn't been as commercially viable as we'd like, but we are taking steps in that direction. We are certainly on our way there.''

The IMAX projection system revolutionized giant-screen cinema when the technology premiered in 1970 with projectors that used film 10 times larger than the conventional 35mm frame and movies projected onto giant rectangular screens as many as eight stories high. IMAX tickets generally cost $2-$3 more than the usual movie admission.

As of the end of last year, there were more than 227 IMAX theaters operating in 30 countries, 11 of them in California. There is also a number of similar ``large format'' theaters that run many of the same films but not those produced specifically by IMAX. The Edwards chain, for example, has three non-IMAX large format theaters in Southern California located in Santa Clarita, Ontario and Irvine.

Among the titles now playing on the big screens - some located at cultural and educational institutions - are: ``Shakleton's Antarctic Adventure,'' ``T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous,'' ``China: The Panda Adventure,'' ``Mark Twain's America'' and ``Thrill Ride! The Science of Fun!''

Most have done only middling business with the exception of ``Everest,'' which came out in 1998 and has grossed $76.4 million to date, the highest earning large-format movie ever. Based on the best-selling book ``Into Thin Air,'' that film had the built-in advantage of being based on a well-known story, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations.

In order to fill seats lately, IMAX and other large-format theaters have screened such action pictures as ``The Matrix,'' ``Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,'' and ``Gladiator.'' But those movies were not reformatted specifically for the big screen as ``Apollo 13'' will be.

``If they want to make it a seven-days-a-week business, you would have to have product that would appeal to the date crowd or the teen crowd,'' Dergarabedian said. ``The same thing that attracts the most frequent moviegoers with a regular film can carry over to the large format films.''

Optimism for the format was heightened in February 2001 when IMAX sealed a deal with the Walt Disney Co. that has seen the studio ramp up its large-format production with new giant-screen projects, one of which is the upcoming ``Ultimate X,'' an ESPN-sponsored project about the X Games, set for release May 10.

This fall, Disney will make the unprecedented move of releasing its holiday film ``Treasure Planet'' simultaneously in regular theaters and in IMAX and other large-format theaters. For Gelfond, this is a dream scenario.

``Our ultimate goal is when people think of seeing a new blockbuster, they will consider seeing it on IMAX,'' he said. ``I'd like to see special event films released at the same time in both formats.''

Before Disney found first IMAX box office success by reformatting its animated classics ``Beauty and the Beast'' and ``Fantasia'' in recent years, it was slim pickings for IMAX and other large format exhibitors. Disney now plans to release in January 2003 a large-format version of its 1994 film ``The Lion King'' that will have even more enhancements than ``Beauty'' and ``Fantasia.''

``Prior to `Beauty and the Beast,' we had a lull where there was a series of films that were not good commercial large-format films,'' said Marschke. ``They weren't enticing or romantic enough to the commercial moviegoer. We are in direct competition with 35 mm and our films have to be that much better.''

Before ``Apollo 13'' re-emerges in its new form this summer, IMAX has another space-oriented project up its sleeve: ``Space Station'' narrated by Tom Cruise. It will be one of the widest releases in IMAX's 20-year history.

``Space Station'' documents the construction of the International Space Station. Twenty-five astronauts and cosmonauts who were trained as filmmakers used specially designed IMAX 3-D space cameras to shoot more than 66,000 feet of film beginning in Dec. 1998 and concluding last summer.

The IMAX film, produced in cooperation with NASA in association with Lockheed Martin Corp., makes its debut next month starting with the April 17 world premiere at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Another high-profile project in the works is ``Ghosts of the Abyss'' by director James Cameron who won an Oscar for ``Titanic.'' The film is tentatively scheduled for a fall release.

Said Gelfond: ``If I had said a year ago that in 2002 there would be five Disney films, 'Apollo 13,' Jim Cameron's next film after `Titanic' and Tom Cruise, people would have thought I was totally hallucinating.''

The new product should go a long way toward satiating long-suffering exhibitors, many of which defied IMAX Corp. a year ago when they decided to screen the 3-D computer-animated film ``Haunted Castle.''

IMAX felt the film's graphic violence could tarnish the brand name. They not only opted not to screen it in their owned-and-operated venues but infuriated exhibitors by urging them not to screen the film either.

``Castle'' did brisk business and was the biggest release ever for Belgium-based nWave, which was incensed by IMAX's attempted interference. The company dismissed the tussle as ``the manufacturers of projectors'' trying to tell exhibitors what to show on their screens.

``They've had their problems but the fact that they've had some extremely popular IMAX films tells you it's about the content more than anything else,'' said Dergarabedian. ``It proves that the format can do very well in terms of box office.''

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) IMAX Theatres such as the one at Universal CityWalk, top, will be able to show an ``Apollo 13'' that has been reformatted for the giant screen.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer

(3) Disney found IMAX box office success by reformatting its animated classic ``Beauty and the Beast.'' The company plans to release a large-format version of its 1994 film ``The Lion King'' in January 2003.

Box:

BIG SCREENS, SMALL REWARDS

SOURCE: Exhibitor Relations Co., Inc.