Size Matters -- Bigger, Updated Imax Theater Opens On Top Of The World With `Everest'

Bigger and brighter than ever, IMAX is coming back to the Pacific Science Center.

The old IMAX Theater, which opened in 1979 and went dark a few days ago, will be replaced next Thursday with the Boeing IMAX Theater, which opens with "Everest," the top-grossing IMAX movie of the moment.

The theater and an adjoining gallery cost $18.9 million. The screen, which has been painted silver to enhance IMAX 3-D presentations, is taller and larger than the one in the old IMAX theater, which will become a traveling-exhibit space.

The projection booth has the capacity to project both two- and three-dimensional images in the super-70mm process, on a six-story screen that's nearly double the size of the old one.

The old screen was 37 by 60 feet; the new one is 60 by 80 feet. The old theater had no elevator, lobby, concessions stand or easily accessible restrooms. All the modern conveniences will be available at the Boeing theater.

The new auditorium's digital sound system delivers 12,000 watts; the old theater had only 1,200 watts. The new technology makes use of DVDs to provide the soundtrack; in the past, tapes and CDs performed that function. The bright new projection bulbs last about three months before they must be replaced.

First IMAX 3-D theater in state

The new theater, which has about 400 seats plus wheelchair access, is the first in Washington state to be equipped with IMAX 3-D capacity, although Seattle won't get its first IMAX 3-D presentation until March. The title of the film has not been announced; possibilities include "The Last Buffalo" and "Across the Sea of Time."

"Everest" will play by itself for the next few weeks, to be joined during the holidays by the return of "IMAX Nutcracker," which had its local premiere last year at Thanksgiving.

The movie has been a box-office phenomenon since it opened earlier this year, and it still pulls in more than $10,000 a week at the 61 IMAX theaters that continue to show it in the U.S.

Total international gross to date: more than $95 million, making it far more profitable than such 1998 theatrical releases as Warren Beatty's "Bulworth" or the latest George Clooney movie, "Out of Sight."

IMAX Corp. Vice Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Richard Gelfond recently announced that IMAX is discussing partnerships with Hollywood studios. For the first time in its history, IMAX is mounting a $5 million Hollywood-style advertising campaign for a new film, "T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous."

"Everest" co-director David Breashears and members of the expedition featured in the film were here yesterday for a media preview.

New `Grand Theater' is rare

The Boeing IMAX Theater, which surrounds the new Ackerley Family Exhibit Gallery, is one of the few "Grand Theaters" still being built by IMAX corporation. The trend is to build smaller "SR theaters" (for single rotor), said Dianne Carlson and Laura Jones of the Pacific Science Center.

Average annual attendance at the Science Center's old IMAX theater was close to 400,000. Attendance at the Science Center as a whole has gone from 400,000 visitors in 1980 to more than 825,000 last year. Memberships have jumped from 2,800 to more than 36,000 households during the same period.

Several years ago, the Science Center showed a primitive single-projector IMAX 3-D film, "We Are Born of Stars," which was technically much cruder than the system that has been installed in the new theater. The improved system uses two synchronized projectors and more sophisticated optics and sound systems.

All IMAX movies use a 70mm, 15-perforation film format, the largest in the world. It is more than 10 times the size of a conventional 35mm film frame.

The commercial viability of huge screens was first established in the early 1950s by the three-projector Cinerama process, which made its local debut at the Paramount, where "This Is Cinerama" opened in 1956.

Like the Pacific Science Center's first IMAX theater, the Paramount was never designed for the format. It was replaced in the early 1960s by the Cinerama Theater, which was built for the original Cinerama system and showed such three-projector Cinerama films as "How the West Was Won" and "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm."

Closed now for an extensive renovation, the Cinerama is scheduled to reopen in April. ------------------------------- Boeing IMAX Theater

Opens next Thursday with the IMAX movie "Everest," playing through Nov. 25, at the Pacific Science Center, Seattle. Show times are every hour from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily ($4.50-$6.75; 206-443-IMAX).