It’s been a long time since digital usurped celluloid as the industry’s preferred method of capturing the moving image, but the original format has plenty of staunch and high-profile supporters, with Quentin Tarantino being one of the most prominent and vocal.
However, in an unexpected turn of events that’s come right out left field, the two-time academy Award winner’s New Beverly Cinema has announced the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as one of its titles for next month, and the superhero sequel is even being screened in 35mm.
The historic multiplex is one of the last holdouts when it comes to 35mm projection, so it’s very surprising to see a mega budget MCU blockbuster take pride of place alongside such movies as Arsenic and Old Lace, I Saw the Devil, and The Assassination of Jess James by the Coward Robert Ford, along with Tarantino’s own Grindhouse and From Dusk till Dawn.
Like every single one of the franchise’s projects since Thor: The Dark World almost a decade ago, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was shot digitally, but there’s clearly going to be an audience more than happy to check it out the old fashioned way given the double whammy of Marvel and Tarantino connections.
Sam Raimi’s return to the comic book sphere is expected to blow the competition out of the water and into the stratosphere when it hits the big screen on May 6, so expect The New Beverly to be just as packed as the more modern cinemas across the country.