News Bits: Imax Angers Fans With Its Smaller Screens

Written by Erin Barker

Wednesday, May 13. 2009 at 11:30 AM EDT 3 comments

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Imax Corp. is facing complaints that it is misleading consumers, even as it announces it grossed a record $8.5 million during Star Trek's opening weekend, beating out The Dark Knight.

Comedian and actor Aziz Ansari (Parks and Recreation and Human Giant) is leading the charge against Imax, after discovering it has been rolling out smaller screens -- with the same branding and price.

"These new 'IMAX' theatres are really just nice digital screens with good sound, but they ARE NOT IMAX, in that they don't have the huge 72 ft gigantic screen which people would expect. However, they still charge $5 more for tickets as they would for the regular IMAX," Ansari said via his blog.

For instance, he points out that the 28-by-58 Imax screen at New York's AMC Empire 25 is less than a quarter the size of the 72-by-97 foot Imax screen at the Lincoln Square theater just 20 blocks away. But customers wouldn't know that until they had paid for their ticket and entered the theater.

Regardless, Imax CEO Richard Gelfond says the company has no plans to change the branding of the smaller screens.

"Does American Airlines brand a (Boeing) 767 (flight) differently than a 727? We wouldn't put our name on it unless it lived up to the 'Wow!' factor and to the Imax brand," he tells Reuters.

Eleven percent of the $79.2 million that Star Trek brought in last weekend came from Imax screens -- significant since Imax accounted for only 2 percent of the screens the movie was shown on. But in the long run, will the smaller screens, especially in light of Ansari's high-profile protest, hurt the Imax brand?

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