The original Empire Cinema was the best ever built in London and now it just a sad reminder of once was a beautiful cinema still showing films today. It was smashed to bits in in name of modern change and nothing can ever replace the original cinema there that once stood proud to serve London cinema goers .
Like others I think the previous, enormous, screen 1 was the best screen / auditorium in the country and most likely one of the very best screens in the world. It offered a far better experience than the Odeon nextdoor, with its weird screen tilt and distortion, and the presentation just generally looked better, e.g. the lighting, the curtains, etc. I was really sad to see it go. BUT the way Leicester Sq used to work -- ie as the UK premiere venue -- only some studios showed movies at the Empire and others at the Odeon, and some distributors would want the Odeon for specific film premieres outside the normal split because it had a higher capacity. Commercially, it's hard to see how the Empire could make enough money with a 1,300 seat screen when it was playing, basically, B movies for much of its time while the Odeon was getting everything from Fox, Disney, Warner and the like. There's just not a big enough market for two competing screens with such huge audience capacity if one of them can't show the biggest film of the week. A real shame (personally I'd have preferred to see the Odeon go -- it's big, but beyond that it's an inferior experience), but you can see why it happened.
The Empire was rebuilt in 1927 for MGM with the auditorium block rebuilt/extended to form a 3,300 seat screen, then substantially altered in 1962 to form a 1,330 seat cinema, the auditorium/main foyer of which is/was suspended over the original stalls level, which today is occupied by a Casino. The 1962 auditorium was effectively a new cinema built within the shell of the building. In fact, its circle is less steep than the 1927 one and the projection booth is, I think, about at the level of the rear of the original circle. As we’ll see, this is not a moot point! Under Empire Cinemas, as you say, the Empire could struggle with getting major titles booked, with the Odeon Leicester Square apparently “first choice” (pun intended)-but it wasn’t bereft of them-the last two films I saw in Empire 1 were “Life of Pi” and “Star Trek into Darkness.” Nevertheless, apparently Empire 1 was loss-making, with high maintenance and operating costs. However, into the 2010’s, the OLS wasn’t filling, either. It wasn’t until after Cineworld acquired the Empire (2016) that exclusivity ended-but a refurbishment of the OLS was already due, most recently delayed pending the acquisition of Odeon Cinemas Group by AMC-it finally happened in 2018. It seems likely that IMAX were eager to have a Leicester Square presence. I can’t see how an IMAX conversion of the OLS would have been possible; the Vue West End certainly wasn't. However, recalling that the 1962 Empire was built “within” the 1927 auditorium, which had a dome in the middle of its ceiling, there was just about enough void space at the roof apex to raise the ceiling (substantially) up for a 1.9:1 IMAX screen of almost 90ft. width. You can see the roof structure is “boxed out” at the top of the sidewalls either side of the screen! By some odd accident of history, the 1962 circle stepping then married with this, yielding an auditorium geometry per classic IMAX specifications, with the audience positioned as it should be in relation to the screen size/location. (Except for the front side seats, but these are unavailable for IMAX performances.) There were lots of problems with the old Empire 1 that I can think of other than capacity-the acoustics were dire with a terrible slap echo that made it very difficult to follow fast dialogue in busy scenes of today’s titles. Flat raked stalls. No cupholders in low-backed seats (yes, they were lovely, but…) Competition includes the two Vue Westfield sites (Xtreme screens) and the Cineworld O2 (Superscreen), among many other new(er)/renovated multiplexes. And so on-whichever way you want to look at it, “do nothing” wasn’t an option for either Empire 1 nor presumably the OLS. There are only so many schemes that work commercially and practically within the constraints of the premises-both were multi-million pound renovations. This is not to say that I, like many others, would not have dearly loved for Empire 1 to have been kept as it was-it was my favourite auditorium. Realistically, I’m glad that there is still a cinema there, that the conversion included acknowledgment to the heritage, and the scheme was extremely ambitious (with the building pushed to the limit), rather than a poor quality subdivision… N.B. The IMAX with Laser GT dual projection installed is the Rolls Royce of digital projection, with an expensive optical path which eliminates the prism that compromises performance in all of the competition.
This is just… absolutely disgusting, what they’ve done to this cinema. I’ve never been, honestly, but I have seen pictures and videos of what this cinema used to look like and it was absolutely beautiful before they completely fucked it up. The old auditorium had 1,500 seats just in that one area alone, now it doesn’t even have half that amount. Whoever was involved in refurbishing Empire Leicester Square Screen 1, please never refurbish anything ever again.
I have been there in 2019 and watched godzilla king of the monsters. And holy ballsacks. Its a big boy. I have watched imax before but that screen is way smaller with a normal projector then this one with a laser projector. Its insane
First many years ago the gutted the odeon Marble Arch then the biggest screen in the uk know The empire Leicester sq was the best cinema in London screen 1 in the old days you had the laser show it was a beautiful theatre and they gutted it to add a imax screen such a shame rip screen 1
The OMA conversion was an example of a compromised basic subdivision that rendered the cinema useless to anyone who cares about where they see a film. Worst of all, the original booth that protruded into the central section of the rear stalls was kept. This meant that when they were split in half, the result was in two “L-shaped” auditoria. As projection was off-centre, the screens were actually angled slightly away from the seating! The cinema/adjoining have now been demolished. A 5-screen basement cinema is included in the replacement building; alas, as you might expect, none of the auditoria are/will be of the “large format” kind. The laser show (in Empire 1) installed in the 1988/9 refurbishment was cool, and I particularly liked the music. It was discontinued around the late 1990's, possibly the laser stopped working or couldn't be/was considered not worth repairing. Incidentally, the "aeroplane"/"racing car"/etc. parts of the IMAX trailer shown in the video on this page are versions of elements originally within a laser show in an IMAX: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-f0h2pqejZvE.html (And no, I don't think that one would create the same kind of mood that the old Empire 1 laser show did.)
You realize later imax is miles ahead of digital imax? Laser has a little less resolution then film, but has better colors and pretty much everything else
That's empire LIEMAX for you did you get your money back. Its shame its a LIEMAX as the site of the pictures makes me want to throw up! Shame on empire cinemas for ruining their once flagship Empire 1.
No, it's not the same resolution at all. It's a tad above 4K thanks to sub-pixel alignment but it's A SHITTON of a lot brighter and crisper. It's basically HDR in the cinema which the famous 70mm could have never produced.
I've watched a few movies in the old screen 1 of The Empire and yes it was impressive. Comfortable seats (1,330 of them!) a large screen (18.2m x 7.68m). There was even a laser pre-show. Now, despite being converted into two smaller auditoriums they both have larger screens than the old screen 1. The IMAX screen is 26.5m (widest screen in the UK) x 15.2m and the SUPERscreen is 20.5m x 11m which includes a Dolby Atmos sound system plus a balcony. IMAX screen has 727 seats and SUPERscreen has 400. I have watched movies in both of these screens. Haven't been impressed with any of the movies I've watched at the cinema that has been presented in Dolby Atmos as I didn't notice any activity in the overhead speakers. IMAX with Laser at Leicester Square really impressed me with its video quality and imo is superior to BFI IMAX, London. Having watched Avengers: Infinity War at the latter last week, I left rather disappointed with both the video and audio quality. Granted it is a larger screen, the UK's largest at 26m x 20m but it seriously needs modernising. The so-called 'Premier' seats are nothing of the sort. Legroom is appalling. And they charge £25 for these seats! I've also seen a number of movies in 70mm at various cinemas across the country including the old Odeon, Marble Arch which boasted the largest screen in the UK back in the 90's, at 23m x 9.1m with 1,360 seats, before being converted into a number of smaller screens and then closing down. A new cinema is due to open in its place in 2020. Looking forward to revisiting Odeon, Leicester Square when it reopens later this year (expected to be around Oct 2018) after being refurbished. £10-15m is being spent in order to maintain it as Europe's No.1 venue including a giant screen (not IMAX but possibly Odeo's proprietary giant iSense), an improved sound system, reclining seats with extra legroom and extra restrooms. A 35mm/70mm projector was retained despite switching to mostly automated digital presentations. This will remain the largest single-auditorium in the UK with 1,683 seats (down from 2,116) in order to add extra legroom.
The BFI will still be better for 70mm IMAX prints. Even if Laser has some better specs a 70mm has considerably more resolution at a screen size where it actually counts and it just looks so much better. I’d go to the BFI to see a Nolan film over Leicester Square every time.
If you think that is cinema then I totally despair. That isn't cinema, it's an oversized video wall to show crappy comic book superhero films to people who have never been to a proper cinema in their lives. Even the boss of Odeon once told shareholders that they weren't in the film business and that they are in the popcorn selling business. All modern cinemas are interested in is gimmicks such as IMAX or 4DX. These things aren't cinemas, they're theme park attractions.
Considering IMAX's historical pedigree and the enthusiasm for the company from many of today's auteurs, I'd disagree, but I feel where you're coming from.The industry has become a big business, but there's nothing inherently wrong with a technically advanced large format cinema. There will always be a place for traditional cinemas. They're actually more common than the 'event' theatres.
Got turned into a fucking shitty crappy LIEMAX with son of the LIEMAX screen behind false wall. Fuck empire cinemas and fuck cineworld as well. And most of all fuck imax/LIEMAX as well.
The empire screen I was the best screen in the country and they gutted it to instal an Imax screen only a small amount of films have been shot in Imax ie Chris Nolan film's plus a few others the rest are just blown up from regular film's also laser projection is not as good as 70mm Imax RIP screen one will miss you
In a "split screen" test given to individuals within the large format film exhibition industry (as in classic IMAX 70mm venues etc.), IMAX with Laser was preferred by most over 15/70 projection. In another test, it was found that 15/70 as projected could not resolve 4K. Not that one should get overfocused on crude resolution counts... but the whole optical path has to be taken into consideration--just manufacturing a lens which really achieves 4K performance isn't easy, then in the case of celluoid presentation, by the time you get to release print... Not sure what you mean by "blow up" today given digital shooting, or film scanned straight to digital for post-production, lots of CG elements/compositing, digital colour grading, etc. Christopher Nolan is an exception in trying to shoot as much "in camera" as possible, then doing colour grading optically--even so, when I saw "Interstellar" projected in 15/70, issues inherent to film projection were obvious. OTOH, on a Panasonic OLED, I've just watched the UHD Blu-ray (scanned from the interpositives.) The 65mm IMAX-shot scenes retain celluoid "vibe" but are consistent, sharp and resolve a high level of textural detail--whereas 15/70 projection was far softer. These days high quality digital capture looks fantastic too--see, for example, the "IMAX" (1.9:1 ratio) scenes in "Mission Impossible: Fallout" (shot on Panavision Millennium DXL's... 8K sensor for the pixel counters.)
Dreadful shame on empire cinemas for rapping this fine cinema into LIEMAX video screen tv wall. Never had been back to this rapped cinema since late 2013. RIP Empire 1 Leicester Square, 1330 seats THX sound system.
Screen 1 was great, but this is not a small artsy cinema where never renovating is seen as charming. I'm glad to see Empire keeping up with the times and constantly improving their technology! They can finally seriously compete with the other giants on the square, whose screens are rubbish for the price you pay! The image quality in laser IMAX is superb, best I've ever seen (and I go to cinemas a lot) and if you get to see a Dolby Atmos feature in IMPACT, you're in for an audio treat. Both screens beat the old screen 1, sorry gramps. And how can anyone take your opinion seriously when you haven't even been there to experience it???
siejcio Keep up with times with sound with the original and thee best Empire 1 not this, this what ever has driven me away from this famous landmark cinema. Hail Empire 1.
siejcio because you may never have seen it how it used to be and first impressions and halving it down to small tiny screen is no real audience 1330 atmosphere its mini tiny screen now and they don't impress me one way or the other. Its like going to empire leiecetser square that's had a bad plastic surgery make--over. That isn't the Empire 1 I once remember it to be. Empire 1, 1330 seats THX RIP.
Now its a crappy cineworld. empire cinemas I knew they wouldn't have that LIEMAX for long. They killed that cinema fuck empire cinemas uk and fuck cineworld as well. Will not ever go to leiecster square london ever again. RIP Empire 1
