Melbourne Central’s Hoyts is about to get a 270-degree wraparound screen, making it the first cinema in Victoria to get the ScreenX experience.
What does that mean? Essentially, when you go to the movies you’ll be getting a ‘uniquely immersive’ panoramic viewing experience, created by projectors that extend the film’s visuals from the main screen onto the left and right side walls of the auditorium.
A simpler way of putting that would be: it’s three screens for the price of one! Excepting for the fact that the price tag is actually quite high ($36AUD for one adult, to be precise).
ScreenX: quick links
Is it worth it?
What are you getting for those thirty-six dollarydoos? Think of it as the in-cinema equivalent of a curved, widescreen monitor. ScreenX uses a multi-projection system to display synchronised supplementary footage alongside select films – like background environments or action extensions – which fill the viewer’s peripheral vision. It differs from IMAX by prioritising a wider format, not a taller one, and it differs from LA’s The Sphere experience by not using gimmicks like vibrating seats or generative AI.
Melbourne’s own version of ScreenX is scheduled to open in time for the release of Disney’s Tron: Ares on 9 October 2025, less than a month from now.
A new era for Melbourne Cinema?
The Melbourne Central ScreenX theatre will feature a 50-foot-wide screen and powered recliner seating, providing what the press release calls an ‘elevated viewing experience’. The visual elements that extend onto the left and right walls are not AI generated, but rather produced in collaboration with the original filmmakers and studios, which is comforting to hear.
But while this seems like a cutting-edge innovation for Hoyts, cinema actually has a long history of experimenting with expanded visual formats.
In the 1950s, an experience called Cinerama offered audiences a very similar immersion. Cinerama used three synchronised projectors to display a single image across a wide, curving screen. Invented by New York photographer Fred Waller, the gimmick debuted in New York in 1952 with what was essentially a PR showreel called This Is Cinerama, and later featured popular films like How the West Was Won (1962).
Though popular, Cinerama was costly and technologically complex to maintain, and by the 1960s, the format was largely abandoned. ScreenX, by comparison, uses digital projection to achieve a similar sense of enveloping the viewer in the film’s world, but with what seems like far more flexibility (e.g. one projector instead of three) and accessibility for modern cinemas.
Only time will tell if the appeal lasts.
Where to next?
Following the Melbourne Central launch, Hoyts plans to open a second ScreenX theatre at Blacktown in Sydney later this year.
The ScreenX initiative is a result of a financial collaboration between Hoyts and CJ 4DPLEX, the Korean company behind ScreenX and 4DX formats.
Both Melbourne Central and Blacktown Hoyts locations already feature Xtremescreen, D-BOX Motion Recliners, and Daybeds, with Melbourne Central also offering LUX. The point of difference with ScreenX is simply the extension of the visual image across a wider display.
Audiences will be able to test out the ScreenX format with several upcoming releases:
- Tron: Ares – 9 October
- Predator: Badlands – 6 November
- The Running Man – 13 November
- Wicked: For Good – 20 November
- Zootopia 2 – 27 November
- Avatar: Fire and Ash – 18 December
Hoyts hopes that these big name flicks from billion-dollar franchises like Tron, Predator and Avatar will ‘showcase the immersive capabilities’ of the ScreenX format.
