Imax has big plans for the Middle East

The Imax version of Interstellar earned more in the Middle East during its second week of release than its first – which is one reason the region is seen as a growth market for the big-screen technology. Imax’s chief talks about the expansion plans.

The director Christopher Nolan filmed Interstellar using Imax cameras and equipment. Courtesy Stockwell Communications

If you’re a movie fan, there’s a good chance you’ve seen at least one film on one of the UAE’s three Imax screens.

About 35 films a year are released in Imax theatres around the world, most of them upgraded to its giant 70mm format using the company's own Digital Media Remastering (DMR) technology. About five movies a year, including the current Imax favourite Interstellar, are filmed using the company's specialist cameras and equipment.

But beyond enjoying a supersized movie experience, you probably haven’t given too much thought to the company behind the eye-popping format.

Founded 45 years ago by a group of Canadian movie lovers with a passion for making the cinema experience ever larger and more immersive, Imax has grown from a labour of love screening mostly low-budget, specially made educational or event films into a global giant with more than 800 cinemas in 57 countries. It also has interests in the moviemaking business, including production, post-production and conversion, and the screening and distribution of films, most recently through a deal with Netflix to exclusively distribute the upcoming sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to its screens.

Imax expects Crouching Tiger to be a big hit at the Chinese box office in particular – the company's second-largest market, after the United States, with 180 Imax screens.

It was with one eye on this localisation agenda that the Imax chief executive Richard Gelfond was in the UAE last week, meeting with key cinema chains and plotting the company’s expansion in the region.

There are eight Imax screens in the Arabian Gulf, with seven being built, and Gelfond expects this to double in the near future – he said he expects to make major announcements within six months.

But it has not always been a straightforward journey and Gelfond admits that mistakes were made along the way.

“We had a couple of false starts,” he says. “When we first started to look beyond the speciality films and tried to get Hollywood on board, we tried to tell everyone to do it our way. Shoot with our cameras, build speciality theatres to our specifications, use our massive projectors.

“It was economically challenging for producers and for cinemas, and quite simply Hollywood is a place where they like to do it their way, so we made changes.

“Originally it cost US$2million [Dh7.34m] for our projection systems. Now that’s $1.2m, or we’ll do deals with cinemas where we give them the system and take a cut of the box office.

“Where you used to have to make movies with our Imax cameras, we now have DMR to upgrade existing movies, and for those who do choose to shoot with our cameras, a reel of film now costs $30,000 rather than $150,000. We’ve also engineered down our theatres so they can be installed in existing multiplexes rather than having to build a special theatre. It has taken about a decade, but Imax is now much more affordable and accessible.”

Gelfond notes three particular films that stand out as milestones in the Imax success story: 2004's Christmas hit The Polar Express was exclusively available in 3-D at Imax cinemas, which resulted in Imax accounting for a "phenomenal" proportion of the box office; in 2009, James Cameron's Avatar was released in Imax 3-D at the same time as its regular cinema release, opening in a record 261 Imax theatres worldwide and earning $250m in Imax box office takings alone, a record that still stands; and last year, Gravity became the second movie to earn more than $100m in Imax format.

Interstellar looks set to repeat this feat, having taken $50m in just nine days. One unusual local fact is that the movie actually earned 10 per cent more during its second week on release at the Middle East Imax box office than during its first, a feat unprecedented in the movie business.

It is facts such as this that have led to the company eyeing the Middle East as a key market over the next few years, Gelfond says.

“Once we get in a region, we grow quickly,” he says. “We’ve identified the Middle East as a market that can grow quickly. There’s a big population, people love entertainment and audiences here are prepared to pay for the very best experience. Cinemas are a lot more affordable here too, compared to the US, where an average ticket price of $16 prices a lot of people out of cinemas.”

As Imax screens spread beyond the US market, so does Imax production, and Gelfond predicts we may be seeing Gulf-produced Imax movies before too long.

"We've varied our programming in international markets, which is a key point," he says. "We've released Imax versions of Dhoom 3 and Stalingrad, and we expect the Chinese movie Gone with the Bullets to be one of our biggest of the year.

"Over time, as we get towards 30 screens here, we'll be looking at options for putting Gulf content on screens. Mission Impossible IV already shot at the Burj Khalifa with Imax cameras and that was the number one performing film in the region that year.

"Portions of Star Wars: Episode VII were shot on Imax too, and we expect a similar performance there – we know that local angle brings in viewers.

“As we grow in a region we’re able to do more local content and that local content helps us grow further.”

Perhaps it’s time local filmmakers started thinking a little bigger, in more ways than one.