I don't recall going to see the Dark Knight IMAX promo in 2007 when it aired in front of I Am Legend, because I don't think I actually wanted to spend money on I Am Legend. But it looks like I'll have a second chance to get a preview of a Batman film this year, as there's supposedly a lengthy look at the origins of the Bane character that'll be attached to some prints of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol when it arrives in IMAX theaters later this month. However, only certain IMAX theaters will get the TDKR content, so let's look at how you can be sure you'll be getting the most Tom Hardy-ish footage possible before you actually plunk down 20 bucks on a movie.
According to the Twitter feed of Paul J Franklin, who's worked on all of the Nolan Batman films as visual effects supervisor as well as other Nolan projects, the only IMAX screens that will be getting the TDKR prologue footage will be the biggest IMAX screens around. There are a few different formats of IMAX that you might have in your neighborhood, with a lot of the newer screens being in a digital format that Nolan apparently doesn't want to convert the prologue for. The actual film itself will be playing in all IMAX formats next summer, so don't worry about that; the Bane prologue will only be on the biggest and best IMAX screens, however.
In other words, you'll want to check out the following website to ensure that your screen is the largest format: 15 perforations at 70 MM. Click here to look at U.S. theaters and here to look at international theaters. What you want to look for is the 1570 number next to the screen nearest you; if you have one of those screens, and they're showing Ghost Protocol, then theoretically you should be able to get the five minutes of TDKR as well when you go to see Tom Cruise run away from things. The 1570 screens look to account for only around 20% of all the IMAX screens in the U.S., with many of the newer IMAX screens, the ones built in the last ten years or so, being of the digital format that won't be getting the prologue.
It was a weird trend a couple of years ago to have movies put out their first five or ten minutes online, but that's seemed to have faded away as presumably there wasn't much of a benefit over targeted, edited trailers and TV spots. The preview of The Dark Knight was never released online, so far as I can recall, so if you're out of luck in terms of access to a 1570 IMAX screen, you might have to settle for a crappy camcorder version of the prologue, which at least will probably leak out within hours of Ghost Protocol's premiere. The rest of us lucky bastards with 1570 screens nearby (thanks, Sony, for building the horrendous failure known as the Metreon) will be able to check out the prologue when Ghost Protocol starts sneak previews in IMAX on the 16th of this month.
Are you in luck? Are you planning on tracking down a TDKR prologue even if you have to drive a bit for it?
EDIT: Warner Bros. has released a list of the theaters that'll be showing the prologue in North America. It's not working out as a cut-and-paste, but you can grab the info over on Deadline should you wish to confirm!
