Satellite Systems, El Segundo, California. "This is the first of a first run and first direct to a theater."
About 30 theaters around the globe already have digital projection capability, where the movie plays off a server, and not traditional film. But the film, even as a string of ones and zeros, still has to make it from the studio to the theater, in most cases on disk or over a fiber network.
Tuesday’s invite-only screening at the AMC Empire Theatres, backers say, will skip over that, as the estimated 50-gigabyte film will make its way via a satellite’s Ku-band transponder.
"We’re enthused by the potential of a digital future – even though there are a lot of issues that remain to be resolved," said Rick King, a spokesman for AMC Entertainment Inc., the Kansas City-based theater chain owner.
AMC’s Empire Theatres now sports a dish on its roof and all the various sundry software and hardware needed to receive, store and project digital movies, suggesting the technology may have come home to roost.
(Indeed, the showing won’t be the first time a film makes a detour through space before landing in a theater: A documentary called The Last Broadcast staked that claim when it screened in late October 1998. The animated feature Titan A.E. premiered in a digital format in an Atlanta theater in June after being transmitted via the Internet.
"Put it this way, it’s sexier than sending it Fedex, but it’s not mind-blowing," said James Korris, executive director and chief executive office of the University of Southern California’s Entertainment Technology Center, of Tuesday’s screening.)
Although in its infancy – and with the players still uncertain who will bear the costs of building a satellite distribution system for the world’s estimated 110,000 movie screens – the technology promises much.
"It’s a natural application for satellites," Torres said.
The real costs may be on the down-to-earth side of the equation, though. The price tag for going digital easily exceeds $100,000 a screen at present, making it perhaps prohibitively expensive for many cinema operators.
But in the long run, the savings can add up for the major studios, which spend an estimated $1 billion a year printing and distributing movies on traditional film.
"Electrons," said Thomas MacCalla, associate executive director and chief operating officer of USC’s Entertainment Technology Center, "are easier to move than atoms."
An average Hollywood
now costs anywhere from $1,500 to $2,000 a print to duplicate. Multiply that by, say, an average of 2,500 prints and that’s as much as $5 million to distribute a single release, said Mike Levi, president of suburban Atlanta-based Digital Projection Inc.
"That $5 million could buy 50 systems," said Levi, whose IMAX Corp.-owned company manufactures digital projection systems.
Levi foresees a day when movie theaters become a multi-purpose venue, all thanks to the wonders of digital technology.
Audiences could gather for live sporting events, college lectures, corporate meetings or to play interactive games. Walt Disney Co. executives are expected to discuss the technology’s future at the event.
"At this point, we’re not sure how it’s going to emerge," Levi said.
Although early digital screenings garnered lukewarm reviews, anecdotal evidence suggests the technology now rivals traditional film in quality, USC’s Korris said.
"You’ve spent a lifetime going to movies and I’d bet you a buck you never realized you’re seeing an image that flickers, and you’d wouldn’t even know it until you saw it next to a digital projection," he said.
Expected at the Tuesday event are Bounce co-star Ben Affleck and representatives from Boeing, AMC, Miramax Films, Texas Instruments and Disney. The film opens nationwide on November 17.
