Next 'Batman' Movie To Be Shot Entirely in IMAX?

Here's an interesting proposition: Could the third Christopher Nolan Batman film be shot entirely with IMAX cameras? So what, you ask? Aren't a number of films shot the same way these days? No, actually, they're not. Most Hollywood movies that play at IMAX theaters are basically upconverted, and a few - like The Dark Knight and the new Transformers - have specific scenes shot with the cameras so that when they play in the super large format theaters, there's something special about the experience. This maneuver, reported as speculation by Harry Knowles as something producers are "considering," would not only be auspicious but also prohibitively expensive, even for the sequel of the second-highest-grossing film of all time. You can't just grab an IMAX camera and shoot the same way you do a traditional motion picture. In addition to the 65mm film, the cameras themselves are about the size of a Buick (actually a little over 100 pounds), you need three times as much film per second to achieve the proper resolution, and even processing the film is more financially taxing and time consuming. That's one of the reasons a typical IMAX documentary runs about 40 minutes. So you can imagine if The Dark Knight cost $185 million using IMAX about 10% of the time just how much money we're talking about. New cameras might have to be developed to make them more reliable for the kind of movie we're talking about (which would be another expense), and let's not forget that the cost of making this movie next summer or in 2011 will be appreciably more than making the same thing in 2007. Five percent of $185 million is still almost $10 million. Unless the budget got trimmed to $150 million before IMAX - something I doubt given the unmatched expectations - then the next Batman could cost close to a quarter billion or so before marketing. Do you really think Warner Bros. would be so extravagant? The flip side is that a full 10% of the domestic revenue for The Dark Knight came from IMAX theaters. If there's enough evidence a year from now that those kinds of dollars could increase to 15 or 20% of the gross receipts, then the added expense becomes easier to justify. But not entirely.

Comments

[D]

Yeah, unless the technology really improves in the next few years it's tough to see this happening even if WB gave Nolan a blank check (which if Inception is a hit it may well do). Nolan has said his favorite scene in TDK is the Joker interrogation done with the hand held cameras which obviously he couldn't do with IMAX cameras. Plus in addition to the bulkiness IMAX cameras are notoriously loud which is why Nolan wasn't able to use them in dialogue heavy scene even though he had wanted to. IMAX says it is trying to develop smaller and quieter but I doubt it will happen soon enough for a Batman sequel.

[Eric]

I hear (and correct me if I am wrong) from a while back that Christopher Nolan said something about wanting to do an entire film in imax, but that it would be too difficult so instead would use a 55mm camera which was used with 2001: A Space Oddessy.