with $21 million of that coming from IMAX in North America alone. The four-day weekend opening in the United States (thanks to Memorial Day) led to a $32.5 million debut overall globally. I’ll be going to see Top Gun: Maverick again, but this time, I’ll be going Mach 2 with my hair on fire … in an IMAX theater.Īnd the results back all this up.
#Dbox vs imax movie#
You always stay with your wingman.īut I’ve already planned my next movie mission. So why did I break my long-standing rule about IMAX for a movie like Top Gun: Maverick? Well, I had the opportunity to see it with the same friend that was in the seat beside me when I saw Top Gun in the theater for the first time in 1986, and I wasn’t going to turn that down over a question of which cinema he booked. Read more Remember, boys, no points for second place And I’ve never had a problem hearing dialog in an IMAX theater. But the fact that so much key dialogue is spoken by characters who are in the midst of performing frighteningly complex aerobatics, against the backdrop of the howl of their jets, means you actually need a better ability to hear what they’re saying. Let’s be real, Top Gun: Maverick isn’t going to win any awards for its writing. There are few things more distracting while watching a movie, few things that break you out of that place of getting lost in a story, like leaning over to your seatmate and whispering, “What did he say?” I don’t know what was going on with the theater I went to, but the dialog was soft and at times almost unintelligible - even during scenes that didn’t take place in the heat of battle. With its roaring jets (and, yes, even some of its less intense moments) Top Gun: Maverick‘s ability to transport you from your seat in the theater to that seat in an F-18 will very much depend on how good your theater’s sound system is, and it doesn’t get much better than IMAX.īut it’s not just sound effects that need punch and clarity. I’ve left some IMAX screenings in greater awe of what I heard than what I saw - Denis Villeneuve’s Dune being a particularly visceral recent experience. Packed with speakers that are located in front, behind, beside, and above the seating area, if you’ve ever been to see an IMAX movie, you know the sound has a life of its own. He invested heavily in that belief and eventually created THX, which has become the gold standard for cinematic sound.Īnd while IMAX theaters are rightly famous for the size of their projected images, they’re just as impressive for their treatment of movie sound. George Lucas famously said that he believes sound is 50% of the movie-going experience. On a scale of 1-10, where 10 is the movie theater experience that gets you closest to Cruise’s goal, IMAX is a 10, and normal theaters are lucky if they’re a 7. Tom Cruise has been clear when asked why he and the cast and crew went to such extremes: Cruise wants every member of the audience to feel like they’re right there in the cockpit, too. They were shot inside the cockpits of real F-18 fighter jets, during real aerial maneuvers. I won’t be revealing any spoilers when I tell you that 100% of the reason to see Top Gun: Maverick, are the flight sequences.
IMAX theaters do a better job of filling your field of view than any other kind of cinema for two reasons: The screens are bigger, and the way the seating areas are stacked relative to the screens, pretty much everyone in the audience can enjoy that sensation. In other words, to see anything but the screen, you’d need to turn your head and look away. In an ideal movie viewing scenario, the screen fills up your field of view to the point where only the very extremes of your peripheral vision aren’t occupied by it. The more of our field of vision an image occupies, the more real and immersive it feels. There’s a simple truth to the way we experience things visually. My Top Gun: Maverick experience was a reminder of why that matters, and why I urge you to go see this movie in an IMAX theater, if you can. But it also means that when I go, I’m getting the very best sound and vision experience possible. This policy means that I go to the theaters way less than I used to.
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