News: Auckland’s IMAX upgrade, Goonies Lego and more

Auckland’s IMAX Theatre has been going through an upgrade in recent months, and some huge and awesome components of this spruce-up are now in place. A new five-storey-tall screen has been installed, following the theatre getting a new digital projector (delivered by helicopter) and sound system.

When the British Film Institute replaced their IMAX screen (smaller than ours – take that, England!) they made this short video to show the complexity of the installation, including the painting of the screen:


Show Them The Money

Show Me Shorts‘ campaign to crowd-fund a People’s Choice prize still needs your support. This new award category will give audiences the chance to vote for their favourite short film during New Zealand’s only Academy Awards® accredited film festival,  in November. The ‘Show Short-Film Makers the Love’ fundraising campaign aims to raise $10,000 – half of this will become a cash prize for the winner of the People’s Choice award, and the remainder will be used by the charitable trust that runs the festival and awards for its operating expenses.

Rewards for pledging to the campaign include movie tickets, DVDs, coffee with last year’s Best Film award winner Zia Mandviwalla, the chance to attend the Rialto Channel Wellington Opening Night event, and an exclusive private short-film screening.

BE AWESOME, MAKE A PLEDGE AND GET COOL STUFF!


Pacific Rim made a bunch

While its release was accompanied by lots of speculation that it would be a financial disaster, Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim has grossed more than any other live-action original film this year, according to Slashfilm. In a blockbuster landscape dominated by sequels, remakes and adaptations it didn’t fare the best, and only took in US $101 million at the American box office from a budget of around US $190 million. With its coffers swelled by international box office, including $US 111 million from China, Pacific Rim earned a total of US $407 million worldwide, but still only came in as the tenth biggest-grossing film of the year, showing how reliant Hollywood is on repackaging existing ideas…


 Goonies Lego?
Yes please!

Some clever folks have a campaign underway to convince Lego to make a 30th anniversary set. It looks awesome. You can show your support for the project here and find out more at their Facebook page.


Things that will happen

Dragon Ball Z: Battle of the Gods will get a general release in New Zealand in early 2014, thanks to Madman. It is the first Dragon Ball Z feature to receive a theatrical Japanese release in 17 years, and we can only hope that Piccolo is in it. That dude is boss.

Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella will probably be awesome as filming begins on Disney’s live-action adaptation. Here’s the first official image of Lily James (Wrath of the Titans) riding a spotty grey horse. (via Collider)

Here’s an even more elegant pic, tweeted from the set of Dumb and Dumber To (yes, we have gotten the spelling right):