IMAX getting into VR
September 16, 2016
By Chris Forrester
Giant cinema operator IMAX is getting into the Virtual Reality (VR) small-screen speciality market.
IMAX is intending supplying VR stations at selected IMAX theatres. CEO Greg Foster, speaking at the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch media conference in Los Angeles September 15, also noted that the company is investing a significant amount of time working on the VR concept, which includes bundled ticketing for a movie and VR experience.
“VR will play at multiplexes and storefronts in an arcade kind of way,” Foster added, saying that the first locations would appear by year-end. He said that 50 per cent of the company’s focus was on the VR market potential.
He explained that IMAX would also offer a bundled ticket, adding admission into a VR “experience” for movie-fans as well as entry to the IMAX screening. “You can interact, flying the Millennium Falcon, go into the cantina and bring down the Death Star. All of our core partners would like VR in the core locations.”