Positron unveiled a new scent application for its Voyager cinematic virtual reality chair during a sneak peek at two-time Oscar and Grammy winner A.R. Rahman’s upcoming VR musical Le Musk at the National Association of Broadcasters convention underway in Las Vegas. Rahman is the first director to take advantage of commissioned scents on the platform.
VIP Cinema Seating has expanded its manufacturing facility expansion giving the company the capability to produce 2,000 luxury cinema seats per day. Like the four major facilities expansions that came before it, this fifth expansion within eight years, comes in response to dramatically burgeoning demand as exhibitors across the world are recognizing the value of luxury seating in the cinema-going experience. Since VIP introduced the concept of luxury reclining seating to the theatre industry in 2008, the company has completed over 500 custom cinema projects worldwide, finishing 2016 with a 44.2 percentage increase in overall shipments.
CJ 4DPlex has partnered with Nordisk Film Kino to bring its immersive 4DX theatre technology featuring moving seats and environmental effects to Norway for the first time. The newest 4DX site will be at the Ringen theatre in Oslo, with 140 4DX seats to be installed in time for a March opening. The first title, currently scheduled in the 4DX format at this theatre, is Kong: The Skull Island.
Immersive cinema seating is one of the fastest growing trends in mainstream motion picture exhibition and shows no signs of slowing. Translating the action on the screen into what a viewer experiences in the seat is no simple task and requires the hard work of many talented people. To learn more about that process, I recently spoke, via email, with Catherine Yi, creative director of 4DX America.
The Guitammer Company added more than 11,300 new ButtKicker equipped cinema seats for 57 new auditoriums in 2016, a 475 percent increase from 2015. Worldwide there are now more than 20,000 ButtKicker enabled seats in over 105 cinema auditoriums.
CJ 4DPlex, makers of dynamic seating for movie theatres, has merged with Simuline, a company that creates rides and simulators for the attraction industry. With the merger, CJ 4DPlex hopes to expand its business beyond immersive cinema, including, virtual reality and other areas of the attraction industry.
Les Cinémas Gaumont Pathé – the number one cinema chain operator in France, the Netherlands and Switzerland – will open France’s first CJ 4DPlex 4DX theatre early next year. The theatre will be located at brand new Pathé’s La Villette multiplex in Paris, which is opening mid-December 2016. This location is the largest cinema in Northern Paris, with 16 screens and 2,900 seats.
The number of screens in operation utilizing 4DX immersive moving seats has reached 300. The world’s 300th 4DX screen is also the first in Canada, at Cineplex Cinemas Yonge-Dundas and VIP. The theatre opened November 4 with Doctor Strange.
Cineplex Entertainment in partnership with CJ 4DPlex, today announced that Canada’s first 4DX auditorium will open its doors on Friday. Premiering at Cineplex Cinemas Yonge-Dundas and VIP in Toronto, Ontario, Cineplex’s 4DX auditorium features 80 specially-designed motion seats that are further enhanced by environmental effects like wind, mist, bubbles, snow and scent that work in perfect synchronicity with the action on the big screen. Amplifying the experience from watching a movie to almost being in it, the new auditorium will feature the latest Hollywood new releases, beginning this Friday with the premiere of the highly anticipated film Marvel’s Doctor Strange.
Cinépolis will install the 4DX immersive cinema experience in at least 12 additional auditoriums in the United States, India, Spain and across Latin America by the end of 2017. Five of these confirmed new sites will open in the U.S., Mexico, Spain and Chile by 2016. The two screens opening in the United States will be located in Carlsbad, north of San Diego, and Pico Rivera in Los Angeles, California.
