IMAX keeps making fake IMAXs and pretending they're real ones and I hate it.

IMAX CEO Richard L. Gelfond, do I look like a FOOL to you?

This fake IMAX in Midtown Toronto is less than half the size of the mammoth 60-by-80 foot Cinesphere IMAX located downtown. | Photo courtesy of Cineplex

I will admit upfront, that this column is unlike everything else I usually write about. It doesn’t have anything to do with politics, or global events, and it’s frankly extremely pedantic. By all accounts, it makes little sense to write about something so esoteric and insignificant to the world.

Nonetheless, I have a deep obsession with the movie theatre. The cinema is my happy place, and IMAX is the platonic ideal of what that happy place should be. Unfortunately, the IMAX Corporation has been holding out on me, and making my happy place less happy. So it’s time to do what I was born to do best, and complain viciously about something I don’t like.

While many obituaries were written during the pandemic about how streaming had killed the movie theatre, the impressive box office runs for films like Barbie, Oppenheimer and Dune: Part Two demonstrated that reports of the death of cinemas were premature. The blockbuster was back, and we were excited to restore economic prosperity to popcorn farms around the globe.

For Oppenheimer and Dune: Part Two in particular, a significant portion of their box office receipts came from IMAX screenings. According to IMAX CEO Richard L. Gelfond in The Hollywood Reporter, over 20 percent of Dune: Part Two’s box office gross came solely from IMAX theatres. But IMAX has intentionally kept it a vague mystery how many of those are the real IMAX, and how many are fake IMAXs like the one pictured above.

I have a bone to pick with the IMAX Corporation, once famous for building absolutely gigantic screens, being founded and headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, and playing a sick 1990s laser light show before every single movie. Once famous for such, but no longer. Now, they’re better known for diluting their brand with cheap retrofits of tiny multiplex boxes, and wasting millions of dollars on short-lived and ill-planned side ventures such as IMAX spin-cycle classes.

When looking at the header photo of the so-called IMAX, newly opened at Cineplex Cinemas Yonge-Eglinton in Toronto, the difference becomes extremely clear. What was in 2023 a Cineplex auditorium featuring their generic Premium Large Format (PLF) known as UltraAVX, in 2024 has now been sloppily rebranded by Cineplex as an IMAX theatre with little fanfare.

What are the differences between UltraAVX and this new “IMAX”? UltraAVX has a 4K laser projector, while this IMAX auditorium only has IMAX’s 2K Xenon model, only a quarter of the picture resolution and with worse brightness and colours. The UltraAVX had Dolby’s top-of-class Dolby Atmos, which positions sounds in a virtual 3D space and then maps them onto a web of dozens of speakers. In the conversion to an IMAX, most of those speakers have been ripped out for far less advanced counterparts.

But the biggest difference, aside from the worse picture quality, and the worse sound quality? The Cineplex at Yonge-Eglinton charges $19.25 pre-tax for an adult UltraAVX ticket in their sole remaining UltraAVX auditorium, while an adult IMAX ticket in this newer and worse theatre costs $22.50.

Cineplex and IMAX replaced an an existing high-quality PLF auditorium with a notably worse theatre, slapped an IMAX logo on it, and then massively hiked the price for this downgraded product, and that is astounding stupid business. It is massively out of line with the marketing puffery that IMAX employs surround their mythical “IMAX Experience™”.

Indeed, Richard Gelfond has in interviews vociferously combatted any insinuation that IMAX is comparable to other PLFs, and clearly resents the implication that we would perceive them to share a product category, or even share an industry. And in a fashion, Richard is correct that the quality is not comparable between these generic PLFs and an average modern IMAX.

It’s not comparable, because these shrunken IMAXs are clearly blown out of the water by any generic PLF. The speaker setup is notably worse, the picture quality of the 2K Xenon projector is aggressively worse, and they project the same 1.9:1 aspect ratio as every other generic PLF because they are not built to take advantage of IMAX’s exclusive 1.43:1 aspect ratio.

IMAX is a brand fundamentally built on the quality of its product, and from the heavy marketing focus on their old-style gargantuan sixty-foot high Grand Theatre IMAXs with 1.43:1 ratio screens, they understand that their lackluster refits of existing multiplex auditoriums are not consistent with the brand image they have cultivated.

As this graphic from Batman v Superman demonstrates, an IMAX co-production filmed in 1.43:1 will have significant portions of the picture cut off in 1.9:1 auditoriums. | Photo courtesy of IMAX

The large number of cheap 1.9:1 ratio screens that Richard Gelfond saddled IMAX with, through his short-sighted venture capitalist instinct in the 2000s to rapidly expand the business, means that movies produced in the 1.43:1 format in partnership with IMAX by auteurs like Christopher Nolan, Jordan Peele, and Denis Villenueve, cannot be shown faithfully in the majority of IMAX theatres.

For the production of Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan worked directly with Kodak to invent black-and-white 65mm IMAX film, which previously had never been created. And yet of the over 1700 IMAX theatres globally, only 30 were actually able to project Oppenheimer on that special 65mm IMAX format.

How can it be financially viable for IMAX to co-produce tentpole films in an expensive format that IMAX no longer equips their own theatres to project? What is the purpose of spending so much money on creating content for commercial profit, but refusing to spend money on the means to make that content actually accessible to the moviegoing public?

As the Scotiabank IMAX in Downtown Toronto does not have a film projector, and the Cinesphere at Ontario Place has been eternally closed by the Ford Government for endless repairs, Oppenheimer could not be viewed in Nolan’s intended format anywhere in Toronto. Anyone wishing to see the film in 65mm IMAX would have had to travel to one of the remaining 1.43:1 IMAX auditoriums in either Mississauga or Vaughan, which still have the equipment to project film.

IMAX’s special 15-perf 65mm film is estimated by IMAX engineers to be scannable at a maximum theoretical digital resolution of 18K and in practice 12K, several orders of magnitude greater than the 4K maximum that all exhibitors, IMAX included, are limited to with current projectors and digital cinema file packages. In addition to their old 2K Xenon model, IMAX does offer multiplexes the more expensive option of a single 4K Laser projector for 1.9:1, or dual 4K Laser projectors to achieve 1.43:1.

Only that Dual Laser model, which is the most expensive for a multiplex operator like Cineplex to buy from IMAX, can digitally project the distinctive 1.43:1 IMAX ratio, and this is an expense that Cineplex has shirked for literally every single IMAX in Ontario with the exception of the Scotiabank Toronto IMAX, the flagship installation for the 4K Dual Laser. Even the few 1.43:1 IMAX screens owned by Cineplex in the GTA are saddled with 2K Xenon projectors, which looks even blurrier on the gigantic screens.

Rather than forcing operators to transition to the newer 4K Laser model, and forcing those operating a 1.43:1 theatre to use the Dual Laser model, IMAX has allowed the proliferation of the cost-cutting 2K Xenon projector. For Richard Gelfond to proclaim the superiority of his format, when modern IMAX theatres can barely rival a generic PLF, let alone the authentic IMAX of the past, is the height of corporate arrogance.

To their credit, IMAX is developing a modern 15/65mm film camera for their partner directors to use, recognizing that the format is one of their few economic moats against competitors. However, rather than spending any capital on increasing the number of auditoriums that can project 1.43:1 with either 65mm or 4K Dual Laser, IMAX has spent the last decade embroiled in numerous ill-planned side ventures.

From the IMAXShift spin-cycle class in a tiny 24-by-40 foot shrunken IMAX, to the IMAX VR arcade business strapping a screen to your sweaty face, to the IMAX Private Theatre venture that charged $400K a pop for a millionaire to purchase a mid-life crisis, IMAX wasted a significant amount of money in the 2010s on side-hustles unrelated to their core business, each of which folded rapidly like a house of cards.

As CEO, Richard Gelfond should have focused both effort and capital on improving the competitive advantages of the core business offering. Gelfond has made little headway explaining to either moviegoers or his own investors why IMAX is a superior format, other than nebulous claims about proprietary technology that are not reflected in real-life comparison between IMAX auditoriums and their competitors.

At the very least, at the absolute minimum, either Cineplex in Canada or IMAX globally need to maintain a clear marketing distinction on which IMAX theatres are capable of what. If IMAX will not even attempt to standardize their format and retire outdated equipment, they need to stop misleading moviegoers.

IMAX should make it explicitly clear, with distinctive logos both online and at the physical venue, which IMAX theatres can project in 65mm film, which can project either 4K Single Laser or Dual Laser, and which are saddled with the archaic 2K Xenon model.

In other markets such as Japan and Thailand, IMAX theatres indeed clearly indicate with a distinctive logo made by IMAX themselves that they are an “IMAX With Laser”. There’s no valid reason IMAX auditoriums around the world should not be using this distinctive logo, or for IMAX to make it intentionally misleading to consumers which of their theatres can do what.

Indeed, this would not only benefit moviegoers buying tickets, it would also benefit IMAX investors as well. Despite IMAX being publicly traded on the NYSE, the IMAX Corporation chose in 2007 to cease providing investors their detailed list of IMAX auditoriums, a list which for each theatre included seat count, projector model, and screen dimensions. Frankly, this demonstrates a lack of respect by Gelfond for his company’s shareholders.

Perhaps if Richard Gelfond took a path of transparency with both IMAX moviegoers and IMAX investors, the IMAX stock price would not remain perpetually stagnant for decades. Audience animosity with these sub-par retrofit auditoriums has grown to the extent that terms such as “LieMAX” are now commonplace in mainstream media like the CBC, and if consumers no longer believe that IMAX is superior to a generic PLF, then they will not pay a premium for something inferior to the competition.

Unfortunately, in the Greater Toronto Area, the state of true IMAX theatres is at significant risk. The authentic 1990s gargantuan IMAXs at Scotiabank in Toronto and Cineplex in Vaughan are both slated to be demolished for property redevelopment. The Cinesphere at Ontario Place was the first permanent IMAX ever constructed, and the test bed for development of the 4K Dual Laser system, and yet the Ford Government is speechless on when renovations will end.

With the Cinesphere closed for the foreseeable future, and the Scotiabank fated for destruction, there will soon be no IMAX auditoriums capable of projecting 1.43:1 in Canada’s largest city. This is quite frankly an embarrassment and a black eye for IMAX, that their format is dying out in their own home province.

If I sat on Toronto City Council, I would act immediately, without delay or hesitation, to heritage designate the Scotiabank IMAX. Perhaps this is not the most pressing issue facing the City of Toronto, compared to the cost of housing or groceries. Nonetheless I desperately want that Scotiabank IMAX to survive, because Cineplex and IMAX clearly have no will to replace it.

Gelfond boasted that over 20% of Dune: Part Two’s gross came from IMAX screenings, but neither he nor IMAX’s financial statements will ever indicate how much of that revenue came from theatres that could project 1.43:1, versus those stuck projecting in 1.9:1. For a publicly traded company, the lack of information on IMAX’s business operations and asset portfolio is frankly infuriating.

If a film is created in the 1.43:1 format, it is obvious that there may be significant differences in box office revenue between the 1.43:1 IMAXs and the 1.9:1 IMAXs, but investors are intentionally kept in the dark about details of the IMAX theatre portfolio.

If I were an investor evaluating IMAX, and I saw that IMAX was bundling together revenue-generating assets into a single line item despite the fact that those assets may have vastly different performances from each other, based on details that IMAX intentionally started withholding from their investors?

I don’t know that I would want to buy IMAX stock under the corporate leadership of Richard Gelfond. If I did own any IMAX stock, I would have significant questions for leadership about why the corporation has been stagnant for the last twenty years, and why the CEO is incapable of focusing his effort on the core business and not spin cycle classes.

But that’s just some food for thought. Enjoy your popcorn!

A special thank you to my friend Dan from Montréal, who read this in advance because I gave him no choice, and asked me not to be credited.