IMAX WILL SCREEN 'BATMAN BEGINS'.

Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff Writer

Warner Bros. and IMAX Corp. announced Tuesday that they will continue their increasingly successful partnership with ``Batman Begins,'' which will be simultaneously released in regular theaters and on IMAX screens June 17.

``Batman'' marks the eighth IMAX/Warner Bros. collaboration, the most recent being ``The Polar Express.'' The giant-screen version of ``Express'' contributed a healthy chunk of the more than $160 million the film has grossed domestically.

``Moviegoers love to experience our event movies in IMAX theaters and filmmakers rave about how their work appears on the IMAX canvas,'' said Dan Fellman, president of domestic distribution at Warner Bros. Pictures.

``Batman'' stars Christian Bale as the title character and explores the origins of the Batman legend and the Dark Knight's emergence as a force for good in Gotham.

Canada-based IMAX has gone increasingly Hollywood-mainstream in recent years, with selected blockbusters - such as ``Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,'' ``Spider-Man 2'' and ``The Matrix: Reloaded'' - remastered for the giant screen with IMAX's DMR process, which allows for a movie to be enlarged for an IMAX screen without compromising picture quality.

The DMR process allows audiences to experience a version of a film that stretches beyond their peripheral view on screens eight stories high and 120 feet wide, surrounded by up to 14,000 watts of pure digital sound.

``Warner Bros. Pictures has been an instrumental partner in establishing this trend and advancing the IMAX theater network as the newest distribution platform for Hollywood content,'' IMAX co-chairmen and co-CEOs Richard L. Gelfond and Bradley J. Wechsler said in a joint statement Tuesday.

Greg Hernandez, [phone]

greg.hernandez(at)dailynews.com