I bought an imax projector....

[John Shaw]

I recently purchased the left unit out of a dual imax projection setup from a closing AMC on a whim. It seems like before they left, they shattered the front glass of the lens and screen. It seems like it also may be missing some pieces. I have all of the covers for the unit. IS there anything worth salvaging here or does it have any value whatsoever?

Looking for some advice!

[Brad Miller]

Enjoy your Christie CP2330 with the fancy IMAX "skin". That thing has far too many parts intentionally damaged or already removed to be worth putting a single dollar into trying to fix it.

[John Shaw]

Enjoy your Christie CP2330 with the fancy IMAX "skin". That thing has far too many parts intentionally damaged or already removed to be worth putting a single dollar into trying to fix it.

What parts appear to be missing? The unit itself came with some lamps.

[Jim Cassedy]

The photos remind me of how I saw digital installers trashing 35mm equipment by
cutting cables and generally "breaking things" so that the film equipment couldn't
be used again during the 'digital conversion' a decade or so ago.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Be prepared to spend upwards of 1K on a used lens, plus you don't know what sort of damage was done internally.

It's always refreshing to hear that an AMC has closed and is no longer subjecting anyone to crummy presentations. As for that projector, I'd leave it where it now sits. The pictures are worth more then the projector is. The pictures gave me a good chuckle.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I completely have to agree with Brad here. I don't really see a way to a working setup here. IMAX's Digital Xenon setup was a closed-box setup based around a number of modified, off-the-shelf, 2K projectors and you'll be hard pressed to get matching equipment.

I've restored death and near-death digital projectors before, it was actually one of my late brother's hobbies, in which I regularly joined him. This included some left-to-rot Barco DP-100s, early Christie DCI projectors, etc. In some cases, we could even get them back to DCI compliancy, but for those machines, you can find quite some spare parts and they also weren't intentionally destroyed. But it looks like you got a pair of free 3D glasses out of it.

This setup relied on a magical black box, which was a sealed PC with two Nvidia GPUs in it. Was it included in this setup? I guess that was the first one that IMAX demanded to be destroyed.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Depending on what you paid for it, you might get your money back cutting out and framing the IMAX branding badges and selling them on eBay to a cinephile.

If you can get the lamp to strike (doubtful), might be able to convert it into a shadowbox point-source projector. We had something fairly hand-built along those lines for our ballet production of "The Magic Flute" years ago.

The motorized polarizer slide is kinda fun, if you can make that run might be some fun DIY project there.

Also are those three little fans how IMAX solved rising (falling on screen) heat distortions? That's a simple solution!
EDIT: perhaps just there for cooling the polarizing filter when in place.

[Terry Monohan]

United Artists/Regal Theatres are the worst for just abandoning their old or even semi new cinemas when they want to leave a building and just not pay the rent or get out of a lease. When they went bankrupt a few years ago they left many former cinemas and just left the keys inside. This took place in Santa Cruz CA at the UA River Twin Cinemas. A comedy club moved in with all the 35/70mm and DCP projectors left in the booth. Now the comedy club has left.

UA/Regal must have a traveling thug/wrecking crew that goes in and trash's equipment so know one else can never use It again. It's cheaper I guess for them rather to remove everything or store things. A few times they will do a turnkey inside If they know another operator will be coming in and just sell all the equipment in place as is and they take over the lease. The first thing that a a former cinema will just leave in are the filthy stained rugs.

They cut amp wires from the audio racks, smash lens mostly from old 35mm projectors or even first generation DCP projectors and IMAX projectors. slit the screens, smash the stage and surround speaker cones .Wall light fixtures get wrecked. For some reason they always just leave the old dirty seats in place. A good find for a church or private home cinema set up. You had better clean them well.

The candy counter many times is left intake with old candy and sticky soda fountain syrup machines laying around for the bugs and ants to enjoy. UA/Regal many times will take the popcorn machine out but will leave everything in the projector booth but smash the port hole glass windows.. What the past theatre owner does take out the vandals will take care of the rest.

The poor mall owner will think they can get another movie company to come in and salvage the place but many times the price is too steep for all the remodel work If the owners of the building don't pitch in and help with the fix up cash the place will just sit and rot projectors and all.

Most large multiplex mall movie theatres in the USA are leased very few are owned by the circuits. After the building owners hall out all the movie equipment they can look for other tenants to lease the space or divide up the auditoriums. Many gyms and churches have taken over the former silver screen locations all over the USA.

So many of the larger theatres and mall owners got tax breaks from the city to build a new cinema in town or got cheap lease set ups.

Century/Cinemark Theatres in Hayward CA just left and now the city of Hayward is going to run a movie theatre on their own as they paid mostly for a new movie theatre to be built in downtown Hayward with tax payers money.

Good luck If you find a used IMAX projector It may turn out to be a expensive piece of junk.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Terry,

If it were my equipment I'd likely do much the same as the bankruptcy court did not require an auction to happen. I'd not leave a big mess like they did, but I'd certainly make the equipment upstairs and down non-operational and too expensive to restore.

[Lyle Romer]

If it's not in the lease that they have to leave everything in working order or removed, every company will "vandalize" their stuff to make it expensive for somebody else to reopen as a movie theatre. They don't want a new operator to get a turn key operation for free but they also don't want to spend the money to remove everything because the value is less than the cost to remove it. If the closure was the result of an unreasonable landlord wanting a crazy rent increase for a new lease then they will do even more damage.

During the golden age of chain bankruptcies like GCC, you could have a turn key takeover because they would be in big trouble with the bankruptcy court if they deliberately devalued assets.

[Dave Macaulay]

There's a 12 screen cinema that closed in the last year near me where the tenant completely cleaned the site out to bare walls. Nothing left. Obviously some animosity in the departure. Just spending the cost of stripping the building out shows how unhappy they were.