SAN DIEGO, July 18, 2013 /CNW/ - IMAX Corporation (NYSE: IMAX; TSX: IMX) and Summit Entertainment, a Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF) company, today announced that Divergent, the first installment of the futuristic action-adventure trilogy based on Veronica Roth's The New York Times bestselling novels, will be digitally re-mastered into the immersive IMAX® format and released in IMAX® theatres worldwide beginning March 21, 2014.
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Divergent is directed by Neil Burger (The Illusionist) from a screenplay by Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor and Neil Burger and stars Golden Globe® nominee Shailene Woodley (The Descendants), Theo James and Academy Award® winner Kate Winslet (The Reader, Titanic). The film is a thrilling adventure set in a future world where people are divided into distinct factions based on their personalities. Tris Prior (Woodley) is warned she is Divergent and will never fit into any one group. When she discovers a conspiracy to destroy all Divergents, she must find out what makes being Divergent so dangerous before it's too late.
"With The Hunger Games and Twilight franchises, our Lionsgate and Summit partners have proven to be a powerful force in adapting novels for the global theatrical marketplace," said Greg Foster, CEO of IMAX Entertainment and Senior Executive Vice President IMAX Corp. "We're thrilled that IMAX audiences across the globe are going to be able to experience the first installment of this next highly successful franchise in the most immersive way possible."
"We're delighted to continue our successful collaboration with IMAX, with whom we have already partnered on the global blockbuster Hunger Games and Twilight Saga franchises, and we're especially pleased that we can introduce our newest young adult franchise, Divergent, to the movie going public in the premium IMAX format that celebrates its status as a special and memorable event," said Lionsgate Motion Picture Group Co-Chairs Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger.
The IMAX release of Divergent will be digitally re-mastered into the image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience® with proprietary IMAX DMR® (Digital Re-mastering) technology. The crystal-clear images, coupled with IMAX's customized theatre geometry and powerful digital audio, create a unique environment that will make audiences feel as if they are in the movie.
About Divergent
The extremely popular novel "Divergent" was written by first time author Veronica Roth and has topped The New York Times Best Sellers list ever since being published in April of 2011 by Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins Publishers. The book was written by Roth while she was earning her undergraduate degree at Northwestern University. She followed her first novel with the book "Insurgent," which has also made its way to the #1 position on specific The New York Times Best Sellers lists. To date, book sales are over 3 million copies for both novels combined, and both titles are HarperCollins' best-selling e-books ever. The studio acquired the film rights to the novel in early 2011 several months before the book "Divergent" was published.
Divergent marks another strategic foray for Summit into producing material for young adults, building on Summit and corporate parent Lionsgate's leadership in the young-adult genre. Summit's The Twilight Saga franchise has grossed more than $3.3 billion at the worldwide box office, and the first film of Lionsgate's The Hunger Games franchise is the 13th highest-grossing North American release of all time.
Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher are producing the film via their Red Wagon Entertainment banner along with Pouya Shahbazian. Divergent will be released theatrically in North America in The Hunger Games slot on Friday, March 21, 2014.
About Lionsgate
Lionsgate is a leading global entertainment company with a strong and diversified presence in motion picture production and distribution, television programming and syndication, home entertainment, family entertainment, digital distribution, new channel platforms and international distribution and sales. Lionsgate currently has 28 television shows on 20 networks spanning its primetime production, distribution and syndication businesses, including such critically-acclaimed hits as the multiple Emmy Award-winning Mad Men and Nurse Jackie, the comedy Anger Management, the broadcast network series Nashville and the new series Orange is the New Black.
Its feature film business has been fueled by such recent successes as the blockbuster first installment of The Hunger Games franchise, The Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn – Part 2, Now You See Me, Kevin Hart: :Let Me Explain, Tyler Perry's Temptation, Warm Bodies, Snitch, Texas Chainsaw 3D, The Expendables 2, The Possession, Sinister, The Cabin in the Woods and Arbitrage. Lionsgate's home entertainment business is an industry leader in box office-to-DVD and box office-to-VOD revenue conversion rate. Lionsgate handles a prestigious and prolific library of approximately 15,000 motion picture and television titles. The Lionsgate and Summit brands remain synonymous with original, daring, quality entertainment in markets around the world.
About IMAX Corporation
IMAX, an innovator in entertainment technology, combines proprietary software, architecture and equipment to create experiences that take you beyond the edge of your seat to a world you've never imagined. Top filmmakers and studios are utilizing IMAX theatres to connect with audiences in extraordinary ways, and, as such, IMAX's network is among the most important and successful theatrical distribution platforms for major event films around the globe.
IMAX is headquartered in New York, Toronto and Los Angeles, with offices in London, Tokyo, Shanghai and Beijing. As of March 31, 2013, there were 738 IMAX theatres (606 commercial multiplexes, 19 commercial destinations and 113 institutions) in 53 countries.
IMAX®, IMAX® 3D, IMAX DMR®, Experience It In IMAX®, An IMAX 3D Experience®, The IMAX Experience® and IMAX Is Believing® are trademarks of IMAX Corporation. More information about the Company can be found at www.imax.com. You may also connect with IMAX on Facebook (www.facebook.com/imax), Twitter (www.twitter.com/imax) and YouTube (www.youtube.com/imaxmovies).
This press release contains forward looking statements that are based on IMAX management's assumptions and existing information and involve certain risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in IMAX's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and most recent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q.
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SOURCE: IMAX Corporation
