During the golden age of the Wide Screen, something very special was happening: the era of the special engagement "Road Show" theater. These event theaters had huge screens, 60-to-80 feet wide with big, bright, sharp images. Large format projectors ran 70mm film, accompanied with six-track surround sound. Reserved performances and reserved theater seating was the policy for these special presentations. Box office prices for these movies were $3.50, more than $35.00 in today’s dollars, verses .35 cents for the conventional 35mm film. A person or group had to travel great distances, sometimes as much as hundreds of miles to see these special motion pictures. Why was the public willing to pay considerably more for a ticket, along with having to travel great distances to see just a movie? Because it was an event. No matter what the content was, whether the subject was an epic, a musical, or an exotic travel spectacular, the presentations were breathtaking. From both a visual and aural standpoint, these motion pictures were a total experience. The audience was part of the movie. Why was this new form of motion picture entertainment so successful? It was about giving the public more than they could get from competing leisure time activities, such as television. Many of the films produced during this period are today considered classics, and many of then won Academy Awards including Best Picture. "Around The World In Eighty Days," "Ben-Hur", "How The West Was Won," "2001, A Space Odyssey," "Lawrence Of Arabia," "West Side Story," and "The Sound Of Music," just to name a few. In many cases these films ran for more than two years at these Event Road Show theaters before they were released in 35mm to the local theaters. For more than two decades, this form of motion picture entertainment flourished until a down turn occurred.

So what was the downturn of this form of motion picture entertainment? For one thing, studios no longer owned the theaters and they now had different business agendas. The studios were hitting hard times and were cutting back on big films, especially 70mm productions. To help keep product flowing into the Road Show, the studios resorted to providing them with medium budget non-event productions shot in 35mm and blown-up to 70mm. The public was not fooled and stayed away in droves, the era of the big screen Road Show Event movie ended. As the years progressed, large downtown theaters that once were event movie palaces were replaced by the suburban multiplex. The concept was to have these theaters closer to where people lived and to have several films playing in one location. This provided patrons with a greater selection of feature films. For the theater circuit, it meant more revenue. Many of these new multiplexes had auditoriums holding as few as one hundred patrons, with the largest often holding a few hundred. The movie going experience was now relegated to the "mini screen."

During the early ‘70’s, a new non-theatrical 70mm format was born in Canada and it was called IMAX. It had a square frame and was three times as big as theatrical 70mm frame. IMAX was born out of a need to provide an immersive film experience for world fairs, museums and planetariums. The screens were tall, about seven stories high and one hundred feet wide. The auditoriums were very large and had stadium seating so that the tall screen could be comfortably viewed. The process required the use of a unique proprietary projector, as well as a special camera in production. The IMAX technology was leased to the institution, along with taking a percentage of the house and a fee for maintenance. The movies produced were usually about nature and science. The films ran for around forty minutes, about as long as a person could tolerate the imposing visual information. Over the years, more than a hundred of these special venue theaters were populated all over the world. Going to an IMAX Theater was event. IMAX slowly over time became a household brand name. The public loved what they saw and came back to again and again.

Fast Forward to Today!

      The event theatrical motion picture is a studio marketing strategy, not an experience. The films are based mainly on action-oriented subject matter, heavily dependent on star appeal, computer-assisted special effects and budgets close to $200-million or even more. The exhibitors, in an attempt to stay competitive with other forms of leisure time activities, created the megaplex, with some theaters having as many as thirty screens. Seating in many of the auditoriums hold almost a thousand patrons and have stadium seating. The screens are as wide as seventy feet and accompanied with multi- track digital sound. The only problem is that they are showing 35mm format prints that result in poor picture fidelity, soft focus, dim images and unacceptable "jump and weave." Some major circuits realized that they had to have high impact exhibition, and possibly other types of entertainment to compete with burgeoning high definition, wide screen home theaters. Their answer: IMAX. Currently there are more than forty-five IMAX venues in the modern theatrical market place and they are growing. Even though expensive buildings must be erected for IMAX and seating is usually limited to a little over four hundred, theater circuits are still entering into costly leases with IMAX. After much exploration, Hollywood studios do not believe that IMAX 15-perforation large format feature length films can be produced from a creative and practical standpoint. In addition, the IMAX format does not visually translate well to 35mm for wide release theatrical exhibition. Attempting to counter this major fault, IMAX developed DMR, a repurposing technology method for converting regular 35mm features to IMAX. Unfortunately, a significant number of these films must be "panned and scanned" because they were shot in wide screen and do NOT adequately fill the IMAX square screen. And finally, significant issues with IMAX are costly 15-perforation prints and the huge cost of two print 3-D IMAX. There must be another alternative!