Drumheller residents have the opportunity to be some of the first in North America to view the upcoming blockbuster Interstellar, and it is thanks to the Napier Theatre holding on to its vintage projection equipment.
In June of 2013, the Napier Theatre took the leap into the digital age. Virtually all movies are now only being distributed in digital format. Gone are the days of film, so it seemed.
Interstellar will be released to a wide North American audience on November 7. However, a few select theatres that still have the ability to show film will get to show the movie two days earlier.
“We’ll be opening on November 5… there is probably only one venue in Calgary, at Chinook Centre who will be playing it in iMax on film. Everybody else is digital,” said Napier owner Jeff Larson. “When we went digital, we still kept our film projector, we didn’t disconnect anything so can still run film.”
Larson explains that filmmaker Christopher Nolan still believes in the now historic medium.
“Nolan is one guy in Hollywood that is still very pro-film. He shoots everything on film and believes everything should be shown on film. He and (Quentin) Tarentino feel the same way. He has clout with the studio and he managed to talk the studio into making film prints for this release and getting it out there,” said Larson.
While there are still quite a few theatres in the United States that still use film, in Canada, the numbers are very scarce, says Larson.
The show opens on Wednesday, November 5. Larson says the projector is in place and ready to go. They are hoping to make some tweaks to the audio to make sure it can be presented in Dolby digital six-track sound.
“It is nice to get the odd release on film, we prefer to run it that way,” said Larson.
