3 local theaters to screen 70mm version of Tarantino film

Three Detroit-area theaters have been chosen to screen the 70mm film version of writer-director Quentin Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight" when it opens on Christmas Day. The AMC Forum 30 in Sterling Heights, AMC Livonia 20 and MJR Southgate will be showing the film exclusively until Jan. 8, when it will be released in a slightly shorter version in digital theaters.

Only an estimated 100 theaters in North America (96 in the U.S., four in Canada) will be showing the movie during its 70mm engagement. The screenings are intended to showcase the value of using actual film over digital presentation, the current movie industry standard, which Tarantino calls cold and sterile.

"This will be a true event," said Dennis Redmer, vice president of operations for the MJR Theatre chain, which will project the movie on a 58-foot-wide screen. "It reminds me of the first `Star Wars' release in the 1970s when you had to go to one theater, the Americana, if you wanted to see it."

Tarantino's eagerly awaited three-hour western stars Kurt Russell as a bounty hunter and one of eight strangers (among them Jennifer Jason Leigh, Samuel L. Jackson and Tim Roth) who seek shelter from a blizzard at a remote stagecoach stop.

In order to screen the 70mm version, theaters must be equipped with refurbished projection equipment capable of running 70mm film prints. An estimated $60,000 to $80,000 per theater (not including technician training costs) will be required for the movie's producer, the Weinstein Company, to project an extra-wide image four times larger (and thus clearer) than the 35mm film that theaters used to show.

Aside from six minutes of additional footage, the 70mm presentations will include music by the film's composer, Ennio Morricone, before the screening, during a 10-minute intermission and following the credits.

MJR's Redmer declined to comment on the protests that police groups have threatened to stage in the wake of incendiary comments Tarantino made recently during a rally against police brutality. "We're just excited that as an independent chain, we have the opportunity to show this," he said.

He said projector installation is expected to begin in the next two weeks, along with advance ticket sales. There is no word yet from the Weinstein Company on how much tickets for the 70mm screenings will cost.