Local IMAX fans will soon be able to see films such as “The Dark Knight” in the giant movie format inside the Boston city limits.
AMC Boston Common theater will be unveiling its first IMAX screen in September. Although other Boston-area venues such as the New England Aquarium and the Museum of Science feature IMAX screens (and MOS has an OmniMAX screen, rather than the traditional IMAX screen), they primarily show shorter educational and documentary films over big budget Hollywood movies, due to the natural and length of the rigors of running Hollywood-made features.
In December 2008, IMAX Corp. and AMC Entertainment Inc. announced a plan to install 100 new IMAX digital screens at locations in 33 markets around the country, including one at the Boston Common theater. The first stage of the rollout of 100 AMC-based IMAX venues throughout the country, Boston’s location is one of the first new screens to open. Last month, the first of those new IMAX screens were unveiled in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. area.
Until now, most Hollywood IMAX movies have been relegated to the suburban IMAX locations at the two Jordans’ Furniture locations in Natick and Reading. AMC Boston Common’s screen will be the first Hollywood Blockbuster screen of it’s kind in the city.
AMC Boston Common, once the crown jewel of new area multiplexes, and which has gone horribly downhill since the AMC/Loews merger several years ago, needs all the help it can get. The addition of the IMAX Theater should help boost business, and maybe will help the company get this location some much needed customer service assistance as well. AMC Boston Common has been in the pits where customer assistance is concerned for years, and they’ve never made a serious effort to make it better. It should be interesting to see if AMC takes this chance seriously, or if they blow it again…