‘Justice League’ VR Experience Comes to IMAX VR Centers Worldwide, Trailer Here

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Continuing its diversification from pure, cinematic experiences, IMAX has announced that it’s partnering with Warner Bros. to bring its forthcoming superhero movie franchises to virtual reality via multiplexes and it’s dedicated VR centres.

Update (11/26/17): First teased back earlier this year, the ‘Justice League VR’ experience is now available in select IMAX locations worldwide, including dedicated VR locations in Toronto, LA, NYC, Shanghai, and Manchester. The interactive experience uses the HTC Vive and features the opportunity to choose from one of six superhero missions: Batman, Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, and Cyborg. IMAX says the experience takes place in 25 minute scheduled blocks with a total runtime of 12 minutes. Although prices vary by location, it comes in around $12. For reservations, click here.

Original article (04/01/17): This year saw the opening of IMAX’s first dedicated virtual reality ‘Experience’ center, through which the firm – which made its name via super-sized cinematic experiences – intends to diversify its entertainment offering to include immersive VR gaming and cinematic experiences. We’ve already seen partnerships with developers and

Now, IMAX has announced it’s working with movie studio Warner Bros. to “help usher in” their forthcoming assault on the superhero movie genre with immersive experiences to tie in with new movies like the first Justice League movie and future offerings like Aquaman and at least one other unnamed franchise.

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“It’s fitting that with Imax and Warner Bros.’ shared history of launching Hollywood movies in Imax theatres, today we’re entering into our first studio deal to bring VR to the multiplex,” said Imax Corp chief executive Richard L. Gelfond to The Drum.

As of now, no specifics as to the nature of the experiences are available – whether they’ll take the form of passive 360 videos or more substantial realtime, interactive rendered experiences. Nor do we know what VR headset the content will be targeted at, with IMAX utilising both HTC’s Vive and Starbreeze’s 210 degree StarVR hardware in their VR centres.

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Warner Bros. seems to be accelerating its efforts for VR as an entertainment platform. Just last week another of the studio’s major blockbuster hopes for 2017, the Spielberg helmed Ready Player One, was to get multiple piece of VR content via HTC and it’s SteamVR powered Viveport platform later this year.

imax-vr-centre“Ready Player One is one of the most anticipated movies in the world, and has tremendous potential to engage and entertain the worldwide market, showcasing the transformative nature of VR, and what it can and will be,” said Rikard Steiber, President of Viveport. “Vive is delivering on the promise of VR and continues to be the most advanced and immersive VR experience available to consumers, and we’re thrilled to be partnering with Warner Bros. to bring these experiences to consumers, on all platforms, around the globe.”

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Based in the UK, Paul has been immersed in interactive entertainment for the best part of 27 years and has followed advances in gaming with a passionate fervour. His obsession with graphical fidelity over the years has had him branded a ‘graphics whore’ (which he views as the highest compliment) more than once and he holds a particular candle for the dream of the ultimate immersive gaming experience. Having followed and been disappointed by the original VR explosion of the 90s, he then founded RiftVR.com to follow the new and exciting prospect of the rebirth of VR in products like the Oculus Rift. Paul joined forces with Ben to help build the new Road to VR in preparation for what he sees as VR’s coming of age over the next few years.
  • Curious. What would your idea of a perfect VR movie tie-in be?

    • MainFragger

      They should just do an animated Green Lantern Corp VR comic… They need to build a system where they have set character and location models, and automate the movements so that its easy to put one out every month without driving themselves crazy.

  • Duane Aakre

    I would like to see someone figure out how to do a hybrid light field/

    photogrammetric capture of a scene from a movie so you could actually move around within the scene while the actors are in motion.

    Right now, we seem to be limited to 360 videos where you are stuck in one spot, or animated versions of the characters where you can move around, or a freeze frame of an actor captured with multiple simultaneous cameras. It seems like the long term goal of VR movies is to have the viewer in the middle of the action with real life characters and not just computer animations.

    I would love to be able to wander around within an action sequence involving Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Henry Cavill as Superman, Ben Affleck as Batman, and the rest.

    Duane

    • Christian J Murray

      It is coming soon !

  • ocerg1111

    this has to come to home VR like HTC Vive when the film goes to DVD.

  • MainFragger

    Get back to me when every comic comes with an SD card or CD-ROM/Blu-ray with a VR version of the story thats in the comic every release. This should be Warner Bros. and DC’s wheelhouse like Networking is Cisco’s wheelehouse. I’ll always love reading 2D comics on paper, and I hope that never goes away…but I ALSO want to see all of my comics in VR form. Do that, and you never have to worry about making another movie again…

  • GigaSora

    Trailer was cheesy as fook.

  • The expereince runs on an HTC Vive? What’s the point of having a whole theater for it. Why would anyone that owns the headsets pay for this. I mean they should have used the StarVR headsets, now that would be impressive.