Rising Star Media, in a joint venture with National Amusements, Inc. and Soquel Ventures, announced Wednesday that the company will be installing an IMAX theater in Moscow, in an effort to meet the demand on European exhibitors.

The new theater will be built in the Mega Belyadacha regional mall, located in Moscow’s Lyubertsy district, and will utilize IMAX’s new digital projection system. It will be the second IMAX theater in Russia, after the theater in St. Petersburg.

The digital projection system, which was rolled out in 2008, uses hard drive copies of film instead of film prints, to promote more flexibility to the theaters’ schedules, and allows for far more film copies to be made and distributed for IMAX. The process is also much less expensive: rather than a $22,000 70 mm IMAX print, the digital copies will cost $800 to produce.

IMAC CO-CEOs and Co-Chairmen Richard Gelfond and Bradley Wechsler said in a press release that they were very encouraged by the recent demand for IMAX films, both in Europe and elsewhere.

“Our digital projection system has boosted interest from Hollywood studios and exhibitors worldwide, and we’re particularly encouraged by the interest we’re starting to see in Europe,” they said. “Russia continues to play a key role in our European expansion strategy, and we’re pleased to see top exhibitors who are already in the IMAX business open additional IMAX theatres.”

About The Author

Emma Johnson is a Blast Magazine critic whose work has appeared in The Boston Globe

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