Cinemark @ Seven Bridges & IMAX

A long time ago in movie theatres there was the plain old square screen, then along came Cinerama and Cinemescope and IMAX. Now, there’s something call Barco Escape.

There are only five theaters in the country showing this new extra widescreen format. Here in our area, it’s the Cinemark Seven Bridges Theatre in west suburban Woodridge. And starting this Friday, movie fans will be watching a futuristic flick called “Maze Runner.”

“We are looking at a little taste of the cinema of the future here, where the movie is all around you,” said Ted Schilowitz.

Schilowitz calls himself a “cinemavangelist” for this new technology. He says this is not just going to the movies – it’s getting inside the movies and those giant screens.

“It’s ginormous. It’s actually multiple screens wrapped around your full field of view. So in this particular theatre in Woodridge you’re probably looking at a 35-foot screen in front and thirty foot screens on the side. So it’s quite gigantic,” said Schilowitz.

Three different projectors are used to fill the three different screens and that gives the viewers a 270-degree field of view. That’s about the same as our peripheral vision.

“What we’re doing is creating this multiple screen experience that allows a creative artist, the director or producer, to experiment with a much larger canvas,” said Schilowitz.

They don’t build new theatres for Barco Escape, they convert old ones. It’s a relatively expensive technology so you have wonder – what does that do to ticket prices?

“For the immediate future for people coming to the theater to see “Maze Runner,” like this weekend, nothing different. Same prices as normal,” said Schilowitz.

Right now “Maze Runner” is the only movie available, but live concerts and live sports are in the future.