Guardian UK talks about taking big films to IMAX and the immerging trend in Hollywood after Clones and Apollo 13. Here's a clip:

The decision by the studio which invented the talkies to take a chance on the new technology is being hailed as one of the biggest revolutions in filmgoing since CinemaScope, and ushers in an era when blockbusters will be premiered on Imax and conventional screens simultaneously. The third instalment, The Matrix Revolutions, will be released in the large-screen format on the same day as it opens in conventional cinemas in November.

With its eye-popping special effects and clever use of religious symbolism, The Matrix, directed by the reclusive Wachowski brothers, rewrote the rulebook for futuristic thrillers when it hit cinemas four years ago.

A breakthrough in remastering technology now allows all 35mm films, no matter how complex, to be adapted to be shown on Imax's seven-storey-high wraparound screens. At around $3m (?1.9m) a film, the process is relatively cheap by Hollywood standards. But purists insist these prints cannot truly compete with the quality of films shot with the large-format cameras by pioneers such as Disney, which shot the animated Fantasia 2000 in the Imax format.

Even so, directors including George Lucas and Ron Howard were impressed enough to allow their films to be adapted. Imax cuts of Stars Wars: Attack of the Clones and Apollo 13 were hits in the US, though the adapted films are often very different to the originals. Apollo 13 lost nearly a fifth of its length, and Attack of the Clones was also trimmed, apparently because Imax projection systems cannot handle films longer than two hours.