The Future. 4DX screenings — the immersive cinema format that utilizes 20 off-screen special effects to make audiences feel like they’re in the movie — had its two best weekends ever this summer with the releases of Twisters and Deadpool & Wolverine. If audiences continue to be drawn to the format, it’s possible that some filmmakers may start making the experience a part of their creative vision from the start.
Twist and shout4DX screenings may have just had their IMAX moment.
Although 4DX tech has been in the US since 2014, Twisters officially brought it into the mainstream — it accounted for 15% of the movie’s domestic opening weekend gross ($2.1 million) and has remained a huge audience draw.
Deadpool & Wolverine continued the hot streak, with 4DX accounting for $2.5 million of its opening weekend box office (6% of the total) — showing that the audience for the format is sustaining and even growing.
Exhibitors have been psyched by the results, with theater owners saying they’ve expanded 4DX screenings to keep up with the demand and they’re making preparations for upcoming films like Alien: Romulus, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and Gladiator 2.
The market for 4DX, which is overseen and designed by South Korea’s CJ Group, has plenty of room for growth, especially in the US — there are 727 4DX screens internationally but only 64 in the US. CJ Group has already said it plans to build a “significant number” of additional theaters.
Hollywood studios and theater owners hope that 4DX has a future more like IMAX than 3D — a format with lasting appeal rather than flash-in-the-pan popularity (other than the Avatar films, of course).
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