The Hurting Never Stops: Transformers: Dark Of The Moon Coming Back To IMAX Theaters

Like this, but 100 feet tall. And insanely wealthy.

Consider me extremely confused by the news that Transformers: Dark Of The Moon is coming back to IMAX theaters for a two-week run, starting this Friday. It doesn't make a huge amount of sense to me, as theatrical re-releases are traditionally done, you know...after the movie has actually left theaters. (Although it came out almost two months ago, Dark Of The Moon is still raking in half a million dollars every weekend.) Oftentimes a studio will dump a film back into theaters and advertise it a bit more to reach some artificial gross milestone, such as $200 million domestic or a billion worldwide, but Dark Of The Moon has already done about as much business as one could expect out of it, making almost $350 million in the U.S. alone and over a billion dollars worldwide, so there's no real reason to see it come out again, but hey: Paramount must have a reason for doing this. Here's their press release:

Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the third film in the blockbuster Transformers franchise, is returning to 246 IMAX domestic locations for an extended two-week run from Friday, Aug. 26 through Thursday, Sept. 8. During those two weeks, the 3-D film will play simultaneously with other films in the IMAX network. Since its launch on June 29, Transformers: Dark of the Moon has grossed $1,095 billion globally, with $59.6 million generated from IMAX theatres globally. ”Transformers: Dark of the Moon: An IMAX 3D Experience" has been digitally re-mastered into the image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience® with proprietary IMAX DMR® (Digital Re-mastering) technology for presentation in IMAX 3D. The crystal-clear images, coupled with IMAX’s customized theatre geometry and powerful digital audio, create a unique immersive environment that will make audiences feel as if they are in the movie.

Now, I saw Dark Of The Moon in IMAX 3D, and found it a spectacularly blurry experience, so I'm not going to be queuing up to catch it again. Looking at the numbers, it's clear that Dark Of The Moon doesn't have a chance at catching Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 2 at the worldwide box office, being $150 million behind it, but...hold on...oh, I see. It's only around $18 million behind it domestically, and with Harry Potter still controlling most of the IMAX 3D screens, I guess this is Paramount's shitty little attempt at seeing if they can not only take over some of Harry Potter's screens, but also maybe make another 20 or 30 million dollars and be the domestic #1 grosser for the year. I sincerely doubt they have much of a chance at their little goal; even the Avatar re-release with an extra ten minutes or so of footage only managed to nab another $10 million, and that movie was coming out nine months after it had originally been released.

So, you can expect to see more advertisements for Dark Of The Moon if you live near one of the 250 IMAX venues, I would imagine, as Paramount engages in their nasty little pissing contest for scraps of dollar-based glory. I suppose that "#1 movie of the year!" line on the DVD case is worth something, but it's a shame to see this kind of gamesmanship take place. With any luck, Paramount will just throw money into advertising a film that no one particularly wants to see again so soon.