How could any serious film lover not prefer to see Alfonso Cuaron‘s Gravity in IMAX 3D? The bloom is off 3D these days, of course, but if any film has been tailor-made for this format it’s this one. And yet less than 10% of viewers even have this option, give or take. Of the 3,575 screens that Gravity opened on yesterday, a mere 323 are IMAX. (425 screens are showing it in 2D.) I myself haven’t seen an IMAX-3D presentation — my Telluride viewing early last month was in straight 3D. So I intend to catch an IMAX 3-D showing at Universal Citywalk around 8 pm this evening. I wonder how many of the 323 are genuine vs. ersatz IMAX? Probably a small percentage. (The AMC Century City plex is definitely offering “fake” IMAX.)
Gravity “is a brilliant, visionary and groundbreaking film, and a great gift to exhibitors because it makes the theatrical experience an absolutely necessary component,” I wrote on 9.11.13. Deadline‘s Nikki Finke is projecting $48 million for the The Warner Bros. release by Sunday night.