SilverCity Riverport Cinemas
14211 Entertainment Way,
Richmond,
BC
V6W 1K4
14211 Entertainment Way,
Richmond,
BC
V6W 1K4
1 person
favorited this theater
Showing 11 comments
The extra six screens and the IMAX theatre opened on December 18, 1998. The IMAX’s first features were T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous in 3D and Mysteries of Egypt in 2D. The IMAX closed on January 14, 2001 with its final film being CyberWorld 3D, but was re-opened on November 10, 2004 with The Polar Express in IMAX 3D.
From the above grand opening ad, the theatres opening movies include Scream 2, The Little Mermaid (Digital), Flubber (Digital), Amistad (Digital), Mouse Hunt (Digital), Titanic (Digital), and Tomorrow Never Dies (Digital). I don’t know why Scream 2 wasn’t in digital sound.
The name should be changed to SilverCity Riverport Cinemas.
This is the first SilverCity to be built on the west coast, opening on December 19th, 1997. Grand opening ad posted.
SilverCity Riverport opening Fri, Dec 19, 1997 – 52 · The Vancouver Sun (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) · Newspapers.com
The “Famous Players” lettering has been removed from the building as they are gradually rebranding it to Cineplex.
It will be sad when they finally phase out “Famous Players” as the name has been a film staple across Canada since the 1920s.
The Imax film projector remains installed along side the digital system.
Update: The IMAX 15/70 film system (screen #19) will be replaced with the IMAX Digital system in Spring 2012. Screen #1 will be converted to Ultra AVX, meaning that both AVX & IMAX will be in the same complex. Currently, screens 1-18 are all digital.
I remember the first six months well. They were cancelling new movies that were opening up that night ( it was a Friday and the film that was cancelled was Deep Rising ) to interlock Titanic on another screen.
The line ups were enormous and the ticket prices were very expensive for the time ( $9.75 ).
Very similar experience with the X-Files Movie later that year with the huge lineups. Everyone from the Suburbs got tired of watching films at theatres that hadn’t been updated in 15+ years and Stadium seating was a big deal!
I also experienced the 2002 1.3K DLP projection of Star Wars Episode II. It didn’t look like anything that is available today. Bright scenes looks like video and they were running a 35mm print in tandem with the DLP system because it was unreliable and the 35 would take over in the event of a breakdown.
I remember going this theatre on opening night when Titanic premiered.
I think this theatre had the fourth or fifth highest ticket sales in North America during its first five or six months of operation.
People were driving in from all over the lower mainland to experience the first “Jumbo” megaplex.
First theater in Canada with digital projection (Star Wars: Episode II in 2002). This location to be all digital this summer, and the IMAX theater will be converted to Ultra AVX digital projection.
There are a few pictures of this theatre pn its page at CinemaTour: http://www.cinematour.com/tour/ca/155.html