'The Dark Knight Rises' IMAX Preview Will Show Only On 70mm IMAX Screens

By Russ Fischer/Oct. 25, 2011 5:00 am EST

We've got additional confirmation that six minutes from The Dark Knight Rises will be shown in front of Paramount's Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol when that film opens on December 16, as /Film revealed last week. But there's a catch. You'll have to head to a 'real' IMAX screen to see the footage, as it will only be shown in theaters properly equipped with 70mm IMAX projectors. Theaters with Digital IMAX projection systems will not show the footage, likely due in part to the fact that those projection systems show significantly lower-resolution images than 70mm IMAX. And if Warner Bros. is going to put this footage out there, the studio and Christopher Nolan probably want it to look as good as it possibly can. (Until it — hopefully — ends up officially released online, though there's little chance of that.)

The AMC blog has the info, confirming the release and saying,

The six minute Dark Knight Rises prologue footage will only be shown on the higher resolution 70mm IMAX screens. Not the digital IMAX screens. Locations haven't been confirmed yet, so stay tuned for an update on AMC Theatre locations that will be showing the prologue Dark Knight Rises footage at a 70mm IMAX screen nearest you.

That means that the smaller IMAX Experience screens that are to be found in many multiplexes won't be showing this Batman prologue. Since most towns only have one or two full 70mm IMAX screens (if that) there won't be that many opportunities to see the prologue to Nolan's third and final Batman movie.

(And note that we're using the word 'prologue' in a loose sense. Just as the bank robbery sequence in The Dark Knight was shown as a prologue in some IMAX theaters in late 2007, we expect this footage to be from the very beginning of the first act of The Dark Knight Rises.)

So keep an eye on theater listings and showtimes. We'll provide a list of theaters that will be showing the footage from The Dark Knight Rises as soon as such a thing becomes available.