Game of Thrones in IMAX : promise for future, room for experimentation 

The success of Game of Thrones in its first weekend of IMAX may be

Despite six month-old content being shown on a limited amount of theaters, Game of Thrones racked up $1.5 million.

“It’s a very healthy result,” said Phil Contrino, vice president and chief analyst at BoxOffice.com. “I think you’re going to see shows like ‘House of Cards’ or other popular programs looking into this now. If you put a season premiere or series finale there, I think there’s a lot of potential, especially if there’s some exclusive element.”

Variety reports that insiders predict even bigger grosses can be achieved by showing new content in conjunction with or in advance of their air date.

IMAX has noticed the turnout for season 4’s final two episodes and is eyeing the medium for more television endeavors.

“This was a successful response for this first experiment and ‘Game of Thrones’ is a show that lends itself to the kind of canvas that IMAX provides,” said Greg Foster, chairman and president of IMAX Entertainment. “We will continue to experiment and comb over the data and figure out how to provide exhibitors with content 52 weeks out of the year.”

“‘Game of Thrones’ is an epic show that just becomes incredibly grand on IMAX,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak. “This was a gift to the true fans.”

There are some valuable lessons to be gleaned by how the show performed. Big cities provided the bulk of the revenue, so going forward Imax will likely limit its screen count to roughly 150 locations as opposed to the more than 200 it debuted “Game of Thrones” on, with an emphasis on shedding some of the smaller towns and suburbs.

Variety also notes that the epic nature of Game of Thrones naturally lends itself to IMAX versus other popular shows; “The Big Bang Theory” and “Modern Family” may lead in the ratings but would not translate to the IMAX experience.

“This is a lab and we’re continuing to fine tune and find the right way to release content,” said Foster.

Any other shows you would like to see in IMAX? Don’t forget to send in reactions and other content to us if you had a chance to go!

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so going forward Imax will likely limit its screen count to roughly 150 locations as opposed to the more than 200 it debuted “Game of Thrones” on, with an emphasis on shedding some of the smaller towns and suburbs.

I have a technical question. Although they’ve run with some new cameras (like the RED Dragon), most of the GoT is shot on a non-4K Alexa – which means the resolution is lower than what even 4K TVs can produce. How was the IMAX stuff done?

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