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- dave
Avoid the meadow...

[anyone know of an online database of this kind of info?]

This was a great show at the Cary Grant theatre
on the Sony lot.

I was based in Los Angeles at the time.

BRAINSTORM had more than 100 engagements.

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So when all those 70mm prints went back to the distributor, were they treated the same as 35mm? I mean were they given any special inspection or archival, or are they considered just so much junk?

Anyone ever seen a 70mm double-feature? I did, once. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, with Star Trek 5 (I think it was 5). Interesting observation: Indiana Jones looked WAY sharper than Star Trek. It was like Indy got the "A" treatment during the blowup or at the lab, and Star Trek got the "B" treatment.

http://db.widescreenreview.com/theatrical/70mmartcl.htm

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
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70mm lists

quote:

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In Toronto the widest was probably StarTrek voyage home with 15 prints in toronto alone

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Toronto was definitely a huge market for 70mm, perhaps among the top three or four markets in North America. For "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" in the Southern California market, there were seventeen 70mm engagements. In the latter weeks of the run, at least six additional theaters that I'm aware of played prints that had been moved-over from the initial batch of theaters that booked the movie.

quote:

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My guess is Brainstorm. In the greater Los Angeles area, it seemed like almost every theater with 70mm capability booked that movie, in 70mm.

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There were 13 opening day engagements of "Brainstorm" that I'm aware of for the L.A. area, with four additional 70mm runs added when the film had its expanded nationwide release a few weeks later. I believe there were over 100 70mm runs throughout the country.

Prior to "Brainstorm" the most 70mm engagements for one release in Southern California was "Return Of The Jedi" (18).

Post "Brainstorm" (in L.A.):

25 engagements of "2010"

24 engagements of "Dick Tracy" (including a few with CDS sound)

There were 23 70mm prints of "Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom," including 70mm prints for all three screens of Mann's Chinese and two prints at the Orange Cinedome.

Other films with more than a dozen 70mm prints for the L.A. area that I'm aware of include "Cocoon," "Young Sherlock Holmes," "Aliens," "Star Trek III," "Star Trek IV " (which included the first commercial screenings of the Dolby Stereo SR format at two theaters), "Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade" (with the only known advertised "split surround" format runs in Hollywood and Westwood -- there were others; they just were never advertised), "Far And Away," and (who would have guessed) "Hoffa."

The 70mm runs with the most prints throughout North America were "Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom," "2010," and "Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade," all with over 200 prints in circulation. I'd hate to have seen the lab bill for those runs(!), but the effort and expense was certainly worth it for quality-conscious moviegoers.

Those were the days! It's sad to think that the only 70mm we get today is the occasional retrospective screening or the IMAX/Large-Format versions of 70mm. As nice as it is to have an opportunity to see something like "Beauty And The Beast" in Large Format, it's sickening to think about the cluelessness of the distribution arms of the studios and the exhibitors who cannot grasp the reasoning for keeping 5-perf 70mm alive as a viable release format. It would have made more sense, in my opinion, to have released "Beauty And The Beast" in "conventional" 5-perf 70mm rather than 8- or 15-perf 70mm. Converting "conventional" movies to IMAX or, worse, showing 35mm prints on IMAX screens is all marketing, nothing more, nothing less.