Cineworld Cinema - Leicester Square

As promised, here’s a short video of the new foyer: https://youtu.be/er5pqy9F_OY

Apologies for the shaky camera work!

Strangely the IMAX appears to have retained its padded doors albeit with simplified door handles, which looks a bit out of place.

On my visit the other day the wall had lines drawn on it to mark where the strips would be attached.

Interesting, doesn’t seem to be something that appears among Eomac’s sample photos, but a quick Google search leads to a number of suppliers, at least one of which boasts their product yields a “seamless” finish. Wonder if they will replace the IMAX’s ceiling (though persumably not with reflective material!) as this all seems “no expense spared”…

I guess the right wall is simply painted with Perspex/acrylic strips attached?

Yes all of the black ceiling in the foyer is a reflective lacquer finish stretch ceiling.

Cineworld’s Twitter team have posted a photo of the finished bar entrance stairs, which incorporate LED displays in the risers.

I guess what I meant was “had been allowed to become stale” :) The final iteration was a bit of a mush-mash of parts and finishes from various decades.

Next to the screed and adhesive are boxes of Polyflex vinyl floor tiles, presumably for a booth or back of house area. On the other side of the foyer was a rather large shrink wrapped box with a Barco label on it, which might be connected to what’s been going on for 4DX?

PhilipWW: You’re most welcome, I’m glad to hear it’s appreciated!

IMAX don’t use the standard DCP format, they have their own extended version, IDF (IMAX Digital Format.) No idea what resolutions/frame rates are supported.

In any case, a different package would be supplied for laser venues, as the colour grading is different for “IMAX with Laser.” IMAX themselves listed 70mm IMAX, IMAX with Laser and IMAX Digital (Xenon) as the different IMAX formats “Dunkirk” was released in, and see also the IMDb Technical Specifications page for Dunkirk—notice the 1.43:1 ratio for IMAX with Laser.

The “laser” part of the projection is only the light source, DLP chips (or LCoS/SXRD in the case of Sony) are still used. Greater screen brightness, wider colour gamut (increased range of colours), and deeper blacks. On the other hand it has a number of technical challenges, hence IMAX acquired a number of patents from Kodak. The most well known is the “speckling” issue—one way IMAX ameliorates that is by attaching lots of small transducers (speakers) to the screen, which constantly slightly shake it!

I fully agree with your comments on framing and the strange design choices of so-called “large format” screens. I think the concept is, as with IMAX, to present a large wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling screen to the patron as soon as they walk into the cinema.

If one looks at a 1928 photo of the Empire Leicester Square Rebuilding Works and compares it to this part (direct link to time in video) of the The Installation of the Empire Leicester Square IMAX, looking carefully at the front of the auditorium on the left, then it seems fairly obvious that parts of the roof structure are “boxed out”—you can see the diagonal parts (I’m sure they have a name?) of the central roof truss.

So it becomes pretty obvious that the LSQ IMAX has the biggest screen size possible within the cinema’s demise. As 1.43:1 IMAX content may well be framed with 1.78:1 in mind for “home video” releases, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that the extra height could be used.

It seems odd that they’d have bothered to “jam” the screen in vertically otherwise, whilst presumably fitting in services (e.g. HVAC ducts), hanging the massive wall behind from the roof to boot, and commensurately moving up the curved parts of the ceiling to allow for sightlines.

It’s all somewhat by-the-by though really, as—because of the excellent geometry/alignment/black levels—1.9:1 content looks absolutely fine anyway. (Of course, for a screen lacking masking, if the projection can’t achieve straight and dark black edges around the picture, the picture won’t be properly framed.)

On the subject of “perfect” projection, or at least projection as good as possible under given conditions, that’s exactly what IMAX tries to do, with daily auto recalibration of picture/sound (camera and microphones in the auditorium for this), and continuous monitoring of the picture with adjustments made by IMAX’s “image enhancer” to keep everything aligned at all times, as well as remote monitoring by IMAX in Mississauga (Ontario, Canada.)

It would, of course, be reasonable to be cynical about IMAX’s claims—albeit some of the system’s details are disclosed in their patents—but at least at the Cineworld/Empire Leicester Square, it seems to work!

Work on the foyer is coming on apace! I look forward to seeing the finished result but it seems to be taking what was once a rather stale, dated space into something more befitting of its location. Take a look at the photos I’ve uploaded.

The flooring in the box office area has been revealed and it’s a matt, grippy finish tile rather than Cineworld’s signature glossy black sparkly number. A wise decision given how slippery this area could get in the rain! Opposite the box office are two 85 inch UHD displays (a few more of these waiting to be unpacked in the foyer).

The balustrades on the stairs have made a return albeit with their tops missing – I suspect we’ll see this lit underneath.

On the ceiling in certain areas are large backlit panels mimicking the gold squares. Due to their size they seem to be sagging in the middle but I’d imagine this will be rectified at some point. Interestingly the coloured LED lights hidden inside the gold inset squares were not on tonight.

Gradually new signage for screens, toilets etc is going up, and the doors to the IMAX screen have lost their padding – perhaps one of the contractors now has a new headboard! The area under the sloped portion of ceiling looks deeper than before but it’s probably just my eyes playing tricks. It would be nice to see a bar added in here to compete with Vue and Odeon but I wouldn’t be surprised to just see some sofas.

Corridor to the Superscreen has new carpet and signage, with the white ceiling painted dark grey. Wall coverings remain the same. The area in front of the stairs to screens 5-7 retains the same ceiling as before with the lower part painted dark grey and the raised section painted red.

Tonight I saw A Quiet Place, which is an excellent demonstration of what can be done with Dolby Atmos. It also demonstrated the incredible sub bass that screen is capable of, with roars, crashes and fireworks shaking the seats. Also the film was shot in Super 35mm and mastered in 4K so really let the projector shine, although black levels could have been better (the image was reflecting off the port glass onto the back wall of the booth, then casting a glow on the screen which is something I’ve never really noticed before).

CF100: The carpet I spotted is mostly black with large red and grey rings, rather than the standard carpet which has a busier pattern reminiscent of fireworks.

Regarding the Superscreen, flat films fill the screen vertically but not horizontally, and scope films fill the screen horizontally but not vertically. For 2D presentations only one of the projectors is used.

Zappomatic: Thank you, once again, for the comprehensive update and all of the photos, forming a very nice record of the foyer refurb.

The “gold” square panels look glitzy indeed! I had thought that they could have addressable lights, or use LED panel modules, programmed with a “glittering” pattern, so it’s a shame that they are just backlit. Wonder what they’re actually made of?

All sounding rather promising (and expensive!) with the stretched fabric ceiling.

Do you mean the carpet pattern featuring circular shapes?

Seems likely that the former Screens 4/5 will feature large reclining red seating, but not sure there’s enough space in the rest as there are already so few rows…

I presume that the main difference between the IMAX and Superscreen is the equipment in the projection both rather than the screen itself.

I presume that the IMAX screen is 1.90 ratio, perfect for a digital IMAX presentation. For a non IMAX presentation, a 1.85 film would appear very slightly pillarboxed and a Scope film would appear letterboxed.

If the Superscreen is 1.90, the same would be true. However if it was 1.85, as it may well be, a Flat film would fit perfectly while a Scope film would not just be letterboxed but also slightly trimmed at the sides, down from 2048 to 1998 pixels giving an aspect ratio of around 2.32, not be ideal for a premier cinema.

Hmm, assuming that Screens 4 and 5 become 1 and 2, that creates a neat arrangement where, as one enters from LSQ, Screens 1-3 are to the left, and 5-7 are up the stairs to the right.

It would perhaps make more sense if the 4DX was Screen 1. However, that would mean the former Screen 6 would be numbered Screen 4, potentially risking annoyed patrons for the 4DX going all the way down the stairs and up again, only to find themselves in the former Screen 6, and then being sent down the stairs again to get to the 4DX!

I suppose the 4DX won’t be signed “Screen 4” anyway, so in practice it should appear to be a sensible arrangement.

PhilipWW: The IMAX screen is not an “IMAX” when non-IMAX content is shown.

For non-IMAX content, only ONE of the two projectors is used. I can’t remember whether IMAX turn off parts of whatever processing is in their “image enhancer” also.

(By definition, they must, since some of what it does doesn’t apply for single projector use—basically to do with auto alignment of the two projectors.)

Last time I was there for a 3D screening, before the main feature, I explained to some American tourists a couple of rows in front why they could only see through one of the 3D glasses lenses. They thought the glasses were foggy or something had gone wrong—albeit I suspect they weren’t exactly looking for the technical blurb on colour filtered lenses, used for IMAX with Laser, that I fed them with!

Admittedly, the only time I think this has happened for the main feature of a public screening (outside of e.g. Frightfest) is with “The Imitation Game,” and clearly Cineworld are having no problems getting “big title” IMAX films booked.

I imagine all references to the “IMPACT” screen are being dropped by Cineworld, although funnily enough, the current price list on their site actually has the Superscreen logo for the column of the prices table, but beneath it has “Off peak saver… Save £2.00 IMAX & IMPACT…”!