Second Update: AMC is having a one-off Indy movie marathon on September 15th, starting at 10:30 am. The run includes all four films, a limited edition poster, a lanyard, and $5 in AMC Stubs Bucks (if you’re a member) for the price of $25. You can find a list of participating cinemas here.
Updated: IMAX now has an official page for RAIDERS (which will let you find participating cinemas and buy tickets). You can link to it here.
Last week we reported on the special features set to accompany INDIANA JONES: THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES BLU-RAY along with a release date of September 18th – this week brings the news that, by way of better promoting this Blu-Ray release (because of course nobody would buy Blu-Ray Indy without some serious nudging?), the restored version of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK will receive a week-long run in IMAX!
The film has been carefully reformatted to 70mm, and Spielberg has made it clear that “no special effects or other visual elements of the film were changed.” Which is basically the best thing Spielberg could have said – hell, I would have taken a non-restored version in IMAX, grain and all, just so long as it was unaltered.
As for why we’re getting this release (beyond the promotional purpose)? “For me, it’s always been the bigger the screen, the better,” said Spielberg. “It’s the only marked contrast we have to the generations that are seeing our movies on phones and hand-held platforms. It’s a complete relief to be able to see a film that many people have just experienced on a palm-sized platform technology, suddenly hurled at that them on an Imax-sized screen.”
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK will run from Friday, September 7th through Thursday, September 13th. It is currently not known which cinemas will be showing the film, so you’ll have to do a bit of digging (heh…) to find out if RAIDERS is releasing near you. We’ll update this article should a list appear in the interim. For the film-format-curious amongst you, there’s a great little article right here that runs down just what a 70mm IMAX conversion means, both technically and for you as the lucky viewer.
“‘Raiders’ is a movie of my own, that I can actually stand to watch from beginning to end,” shared Spielberg. “In that sense, it has a special place in my heart. I don’t rewrite it in my mind; I’m not kicking myself for what I didn’t do. I’m just going along for the ride like everybody else. It’s one of the few films that I’ve directed that I can sit back objectively and observe and enjoy with my family or whoever I’m with, or even alone. Most of my other films, I’m hypercritical of them.”