Local fans of classic Steven Spielberg movies may have a reason to return to South African cinemas after the pandemic closures as E.T. and Jaws get re-released in IMAX.
The pair of movies are receiving this special treatment for their anniversaries with 1982’s E.T. turning 40 and 1975’s Jaws turning 47th.
Both will be available to watch again come 9th September.
“IMAX is thrilled to partner with Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment to offer audiences the opportunity to experience these two iconic films in IMAX for the very first time. Steven Spielberg redefined modern cinema and ushered in a new era of bold, swing-for-the-fences filmmaking, and the IMAX Experience has expanded around the world because of the trail blazed by films like E.T. and Jaws,” says Megan Colligan, President of IMAX Entertainment, in a press release we received.
In South Africa IMAX theatres are exclusive to the Ster-Kinekor chain. According to the Ster-Kinekor website, these are the locations with IMAX available:
- Baywest
- Cradelstone
- Eastgate
- Mall of Africa
- The Grove
- Gateway
- Blue Route
- Capegate
While those are all the IMAX theatres not all of them may be showing Jaws and E.T. when September rolls around, so it’s worth checking back to the aforementioned site to make bookings.
Interestingly none of these are mentioned on the Wikipedia page for “list of IMAX venues” around the world. Given the nature of Wikipedia we’ll have to make the changes ourselves.
While every conversion is different, to get an idea of what these anniversary re-releases are like, see our IMAX review of Akira here.
Lastly, to go along with the announcement, there are new trailers for the films hosted on the official IMAX YouTube channel. You obviously won’t get an idea of what it’s like to see these in theatres through the trailer – unless you happen to somehow live in an IMAX theatre – but it’s still interesting to see a modern trailer for these two.
Below we’ve embedded the trailer for Jaws while the one for E.T. can be found here.
