Much of the Doctor Strange business came from premium large format screens and 3D showings, which, according to RealD, made up 47% of the domestic gross.
The breakdown of venues was: 354 IMAX screens, 3,200 3D screens, 350 large format screens and 240 D-Box screens.
That metaphysical link is in full array here as participants run their fingers across large format screens, and so, cause source footage of nebulas taken from the Hubble Space Telescope to respond in vivid fashion.
Airing on 545 Imax and PLF (premium-large format) screens for its US debut, it made $7.5m – which would scale up as approximately $45m on full-scale release (it expands next week).
Directed by Bruce Hendricks, the film is 42 minutes and is being shown only on Imax and other large-format screens.
Now researchers are developing technologies that they hope will put entire computers and large-format screens onto wafer-thin glass, or even plastic that can be rolled up.
A return of $28.2m overseas $3m onn large-format screens) is also solid stuff – including staunch No 1s in the UK ($5m), Mexico ($4.4m) and Iceland (130K), director Baltasar Kormákur's home country.
It is also part of an Imax strategy intended to create unusual events on its large-format screens during the late summer and early fall weeks when the blockbuster business has trailed off.
There's Select, which will cost between $9.95 and $14.95 per month (depending on geography), and will only allow viewers to watch certain movies on certain days; All Access, which costs between $14.95 and $19.95 and allows you to go to any standard screening; and Red Carpet, which costs between $19.95 and $24.95 and includes one IMAX, 3D or other large-format screening each month.
Not surprisingly, the acceleration of the large-format screens has created some friction with Imax.
