My earliest memory of the Sydney IMAX is going there for a primary school excursion, watching a fuck-off big doco on Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton and crying my eyes out because (if you’re not familiar with the life and times of Ernest Shackleton) he suffered years and years of setbacks before dying from a heart defect.
If, like me, you’ve ever cried inside that gigantic, terribly decorated building, you’ll be sad to hear the old girl is getting knocked down to pave the way for a new and improved one, that should be ready in about three years.
Apparently the new one is going to be pretty schmick. It’ll have gold-class style seats with meal service and less regular seats than before because, according to IMAX Sydney chief executive Mark Bretherton:
“No-one has seats that narrow any more plus they were designed for films that were 45 minutes. Now, with feature films, people are sitting there longer.”
There’s also going to be a slight reduction in screen size (for “engineering reasons”), but it will still be the biggest permanent screen in the world, so suck on that, every other country in the world.
The replacement IMAX will be housed in The Ribbon, which, if everything goes to plan, will look like some unbelievable scifi shit.
The cinema has been going since 1996 and will shut down as of September 25th. The IMAX is dead, long live the IMAX.
Source: SMH.
