Collider: I know.

Greg: And that’s always a good sign.

Collider: Yeah.

Greg: Very excited about “Monsters vs. Aliens”, in fact just saw a piece from it today which is really, really funny.

Collider: I saw about 10 minutes of it. Did you see the sequence with the President going up the stairs?

Greg: I did and I saw in the war room which I thought was very good.

Collider: I saw the same stuff.

Greg: Yeah, very funny.

Collider: I think it was really good.

Greg: I do, too.  We love working with DreamWorks.  Jeffrey Katzenberg has been a great partner and in fact just last week or the week before announced that we anticipate being a part of “Kung Fu Panda 2” which is great.

Collider: He talked very passionately…I interviewed him recently right before Comic-Con and he spoke very passionately about 3D filmmaking, 3D IMAX, all that stuff and he seems to be a very strong proponent. 

Greg: He’s bet a big part of his company on 3D and it’s been great to see the way he’s embraced us.  Not only do they make incredible movies and he’s the smartest guy around, but he’s really been a great partner to work with. At every studio and it’s my job to bring studios to IMAX and to bring IMAX to the studios and at every studio there’s sort of a go-to person.  For the relationship to be successful I have to have someone who I work really closely with.  And he has been, along with Anne Globe who runs marketing, that person at DreamWorks and I’d be less than honest with you if I told you it hasn’t been really fun to have that experience with him because he’s just a completely straight no surprises sort of guy.  You just have to lay it all out, tell him what the scoop is, just be direct and it’ll all work out. And I really, really enjoyed that experience.  He’s Jeffrey Katzenberg.  He’s a legend but it’s been a really…I’ve really enjoyed it a lot.  So, anyway then we go to the next movie that we can discuss that we’ve announced which is “Night at the Museum 2” also with Fox.  I think we’ve announced that haven’t we?  Okay.  I don’t know actually now that I think about it.

Collider: Yeah we have.

Greg: Have we?  Okay.  Then we go to “Transformers 2”.

Collider: I just realized “Night at the Museum” is next summer.

Greg: It’s May 22^nd.

Collider: For some reason I thought it was a holiday film.

Greg: That’s because the first one was. And then….I think that’s as far as I want to go for the time being.

Collider: Okay.  And with those….I know that Michael Bay is filming, I believe with IMAX cameras.

Greg: Correct.

Collider: But with the other ones…

Greg: Three sequences right now.

Collider: Are the other ones filming with IMAX cameras?

Greg: No.

Collider: Are they using the DI and…?

Greg: It’s DMR.

Collider: Is that what it’s called?

Greg: We’re DMR-ing their DI’s. We’re using our digital re-mastering and converting the movies into IMAX like we’ve done with “I Am Legend” and “The Matrix” films and “The Dark Knight” besides the 30 minutes that were shot with IMAX cameras etc which is a propriety process that’s based off a very confusing algorhythm that allows us to take traditional 35mm and/or digital intermediates and through 4 key steps convert them into IMAX so they look as if they were shot with IMAX cameras.

Collider: So I have another question about the 3D IMAX.

Greg: Okay.

Collider: I’ve gone to see a 3D IMAX…I’m talking as a personal experience…I’ve gone to see a 3D IMAX movie before and they have a big bucket of glasses, they give them to you.  And I’ve had glasses before that are not in perfect condition.  What’s the story if you are like an IMAX 3D fan or with a lot of 3D movies coming in the future, I think that Jeffrey Katzenberg spoke about they’ll be a point where everyone will have their own glasses.

Greg: Maybe he’s right.  I’m not one to disagree with Jeffrey Katzenberg because he’s forgotten more than I’ll ever know.  But maybe to me that feels like a while away.

Collider: Okay, so the glasses thing is just….

Greg: Here’s the thing with the glasses.  The glasses…there are sometimes you go and the glasses aren’t as fresh as they should be, you know they don’t work or the battery is out.  In the old days when you needed batteries—which you don’t anymore—but most of the time the glasses work.  It’s very much of a very….I mean like 99.9% of the time it’s an operator issue meaning the AMC or the Regal or Cinemark or National Amusements whatever, we do a lot of training on making sure that those are up and running.  And so it shouldn’t happen that often that there’s a problem and I’m sorry that you had one.

Collider: Oh I was just curious about that whole thing.  My other question for you is “The Dark Knight” obviously did extremely well….I’m back on that subject…and it played for many weeks.  In fact, it’s probably….I don’t even know if it’s….

Greg: It’s still playing.

Collider: Yeah, I was going to say it’s still playing.  What I’m curious about is say next year you have a lot more movies coming in IMAX, say there’s going to be a few that double up, you know that are near each other.  How does it work behind the scenes in deciding how long a movie plays?  Will you only have the 2 weeks…when they sign the contract is like for 3 weeks or for 6 weeks?  I’m just curious, you know, how that all works behind the scenes.

Greg: IMAX had a chicken and the egg problem. We couldn’t sell enough theatres because we didn’t have enough movies and we couldn’t get enough movies because we didn’t have enough theatres.  Well we’ve cracked the code on that problem now.  And so what you’ve just hit on is how I spent 75% of the last month. It is an incredibly topical issue.  We used to play movies for 8-10 weeks, then it became 6-8 weeks, then it became 4-6 weeks and it’s probably going to become 2-4 weeks.  There’s discussions on should we have, with lower print costs because of digital, 2 separate tracks existing at one time.  This is all in theory.  You open a movie in Los Angeles and it plays….you open 2 movies on Memorial Day weekend in IMAX.  Half of them play in….one of them plays in half of the theatres in L.A. or any other market, and the other one plays on the other half.  That’s great in theory.  What we’re trying to do now is work on what kind of mix we can have so we can have more than one movie successfully playing and being profitable for our studio partners in the marketplace at one time. We haven’t cracked it yet and I don’t know if it’ll be a year before we do or 2 years but it’s something that we’re definitely contemplating and juggling and it’s a function of some of the success that we’ve had.  You know, we have…next year we’ll have 10 maybe 12 movies.  4 years ago we had 3.  So it comes with the territory.  It’s a by-product of success.  It’s a nice problem to have but it’s a problem.

Collider: I’m sure you’re already encountering this on your end is that with the success of your product you’re going to have more theatres approaching you to be putting on more screens and hence as the years progress you would be able to deal with this by just having more screen space.

Greg: Yeah, but we’re not going to be on every street corner.  It’s very important to us that we uphold the responsibility of being a premium experience and when we sell someone or partner with someone on a JV feeder, we’re not going to go into Santa Monica on one side of the promenade and then all of a sudden sell another exhibitor and IMAX digital theatre on the other side of the promenade.  We have to be very careful to keep that premium experience.  You’re not going to see “My Dinner with Andre” in IMAX.  There are certain movies that are right for IMAX and certain movies that aren’t.  We have to be careful that we create and encourage this sort of premium experience that allows for a special environment.  We’re not something that someone wants to go to for just any movie.  That’s the whole point that I was making earlier about IMAX is not a panacea.

Collider: So what is the story with possibly down the road now that you’re going to be moving into digital projection and having digital prints, having say like a Friday night midnight movie of an IMAX kind of thing or doing special….you know what I’m saying?

Greg: Yeah, and live events. We’re working on it and I think it’s a great idea.  I mean, there’s no way anyone can tell me that you wouldn’t enjoy the Super Bowl in IMAX or seeing a concert in IMAX or you know, seeing “Rocky Horror Picture Show” at midnight in IMAX.  So we’re definitely….and digital allows for programming flexibility that we never would have had before.

Collider: And that’s what I was actually going to.  They’ve recently started doing the opera at certain closed circuit events things at theatres and you know…my question is I want to see Radiohead in concert.  You guys have an amazing sound system.  How far down the road do you think that is before you guys…

Greg: 12 to 24 months.

Collider: And the way you envision that down the road, do you envision that….how do you envision that being shot?  Are there going to be special digital camera and are those things around now or are you guys working or developing them?

Greg: They’re not necessarily IMAX cameras which is what makes it user-friendly.  They’re digital cameras that we can then take into our system and in real-time output to our servers to be able to show an IMAX version literally real-time which is what we’re working on and are very excited about.

Collider: Okay.  Final question. What’s your screen…I’m just curious for tech numbers…what’s your screen count now and where do you envision at the end of 2009 and then 2010 your screen count being?

Greg: I’m taking in round numbers here.

Collider: Sure.  That’s what I’m looking for.

Greg: IMAX was 40 years old a year ago.  So in October of 2007 we had more or less 300 theatres in 40-something countries.  Today— since then, maybe that’s a better way of putting it, we have either sold or partnered on an additional 250 more or less screens. 99% of those 250 screens—the new screens—are digital.  A lot of them are in the U.S., probably 200 are in the U.S. and 50 are overseas.  More or less.  Might be even 210 in the U.S. and the rest overseas, whatever.  But all of them are…or 99.9% of them are also commercial. Meaning they’re not in museums, science centers or aquariums, they’re in multiplexes.  So in December of 2009 were one to release a movie, my guess is, you’d be releasing that movie in 150 more commercial locations than you’re releasing the movie in today.  So if you’re releasing a movie today in 110 North American locations and up to 50 international locations, so that’s 160, right?  You’d have 125 or so additional locations at the end of 2009.

Collider: Okay.  And I’m assuming you envision it continuing to go…

Greg: Oh no it is.  You said take me to the end of 2009.

Collider: Absolutely.  So is there anything I have covered that you want to get across to say the audience.

Greg: No, I think that we feel their love.  We appreciate it.  We’re working our rear ends off to continue to deliver high-quality cool entertainment that they can experience on our big giant screens with our great sound and our crystal clear images.  Our screens are always the largest screen in any complex but screen size is one of many variables that creates the IMAX experience and we think we’re on to something. Movie-goers and our “secret sauce” moviemakers seem to get that.  We work with the most visionary film makers in the world whether is Chris Nolan or Bob Zemeckis or the Harry Potter people or Bryan Singer or Zack Snyder or Michael Bay or Steven Spielberg.  Those are the people that gravitate towards IMAX and it’s their movies that we seek and we will continue to do that and try to deliver to your audience and our audience the most dynamic exciting experience they could imagine.