Reporting like this only happens with your financial support. Donate to WKAR today!
Moviegoers in the Lansing area will see major upgrades as two local theater chains invest in renovations to their biggest auditoriums.
Celebration Cinema opened a new C Premium XL screen over the weekend, replacing the Lansing theater’s former IMAX. The new auditorium is equipped with dual 4K laser projectors and a Dolby ATMOS sound system made up of 37 speakers, an increase from the six speakers in the former IMAX.
Emily Loeks, the director of community affairs for Celebration and part of the family who owns the regional chain, said the increased number of speakers allow for immersive surround sound.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s louder,” Loeks said. “It just means that it’s much more nuanced, so you feel like you’re in an environment.”
She said having two 4K laser projectors allows the theater to achieve a brighter picture. As resolutions increase, it can have a dimming effect.
The former IMAX had two projectors but would only utilize both during 3D shows, Loeks said. In the new auditorium, both projectors will be used for all shows.
Loeks said Celebration’s licensing term with IMAX in Lansing was coming to an end. Rather than paying to renew, they decided to transition to a proprietary premium large format experience and invest $800,000 in new equipment and renovations, including new heated recliners.
“Either way, with a renewal with IMAX or with doing a large format presentation of our own composition, it was going to involve a major reinvestment,” Loeks said. “We found that we could actually get some better sound equipment and, for the dollar, really bring a greater magnitude of change to that screen by doing the Dolby ATMOS sound in our own C Premium XL brand.”
But moviegoers in the Lansing area won’t lose access to an IMAX entirely.
Neighborhood Cinema Group, or NCG, plans to open a new IMAX in their Eastwood Towne Center location this spring.
Tiffany Rose, who works on NCG’s marketing team, said the IMAX will feature a single laser projection system, an IMAX-branded 12-channel sound system, new seating and a “completely redesigned environment built specifically for this format,” including a new screen.
“The goal is to deliver a truly premium, larger-than-life experience,” Rose said.
The Owosso-based theater chain is targeting a March opening for the new IMAX to coincide with the release of “Project Hail Mary.”
The film is one of several leaning into the IMAX brand to help with marketing, with some promotional materials displaying the IMAX logo higher than the movie’s title. Other movies have posters featuring an IMAX logo larger than the film’s logo.
NCG previously announced a partnership with IMAX in late 2023 to upgrade the IMAX at their Grand Blanc location with a laser projection system and install new IMAX auditoriums in Tennessee and Georgia.
Last year, IMAX inked expansive partnerships with national theater chains AMC to upgrade 68 locations with laser projection systems and add 12 new screens, Cinemark to upgrade 12 locations with laser projection systems and add four new screens, and Regal to add four new screens.
Those chains, like NCG and Celebration, also operate their own premium large format brands in some locations.
Some exhibitors have discussed banding together to market their non-IMAX premium large format screens under a single brand with a set of shared standards, Bloomberg reported.
Doing so could financially benefit theaters, who are required to split revenue from IMAX ticket sales with IMAX, in addition to paying a yearly fee for the upkeep of IMAX projectors and screens.
But IMAX screens are only growing more popular, accounting for a disproportionately large percentage of the box office for many blockbusters.
That’s in part a result of higher ticket prices driven by films optimized for the format, which are exhibited in an expanded aspect ratio that makes use of a greater portion of the larger screens.
Those expanded images are often exclusive to IMAX screens, as IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond noted in an interview with The New York Times.
“Their premium screens are just regular screens that are just bigger,” Gelfond said. “We are investing in a great experience. They are investing in buying a standard projector and putting it on a bigger screen.”
While non-IMAX premium large format screens, like Celebration’s new C Premium XL auditorium, don’t have the expanded aspect ratio of an IMAX, which often results in black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, Loeks said the picture fills your field of vision. The screen is now two feet wider than when it was operated as an IMAX.
Loeks noted that not all IMAX screens have the same aspect ratio, with many locations showing movies in a 1.90:1 format that, while larger than the standard 2.39:1 framing most non-IMAX screens utilize, is still less immersive than the near-square 1.43:1 aspect ratio used at some traditional and marquee IMAX locations.
“Most of the Hollywood movies that you’ve been seeing coming to that IMAX screen have not filled it top to bottom,” Loeks said. “This new screen is going to have a slightly different aspect ratio than the old one, but it won’t mean for a diminishment of the presentation that’s being projected onto it.”
IMAX has partnered with filmmakers like “Sinners” director Ryan Coogler, “Dune” director Denis Villeneuve and “Oppenheimer” director Christopher Nolan to shoot their films using IMAX cameras.
Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey,” set to release this summer, will be the first filmed entirely on IMAX cameras. It will be presented on 70mm film, in the full 1.90:1 aspect ratio, at an extremely limited number of IMAX locations.
There are only 30 theaters worldwide equipped to show films in the IMAX 70mm format, including Celebration’s location in Grand Rapids, where the company is headquartered.
Tickets for the first week of shows sold out at most theaters within an hour of going on sale a full year in advance of the film’s release.
As part of their agreements with IMAX, Cinemark is adding three IMAX screens capable of presenting films on 70mm film and Regal is adding one.
Loeks said Celebration did not discuss adding the capability to play films in 70mm to the Lansing IMAX rather than converting to a C Premium XL screen, but the chain expects to retain the capability at their Grand Rapids theater.
As more audiences stay home and turn to streaming services to watch movies, Loeks said films being exhibited in premium formats sets theaters apart by turning movies into events.
“People are really looking for not just the content, but the experience of being completely enfolded and immersed in a movie,” Loeks said. “That’s what people are going to look to theaters for.”