Let me set the scene. You are standing in front of a screen roughly eight stories tall, the lights drop, and the sound hits you in the chest before the first image even lands. That is the IMAX pitch in a sentence. But there is a lot of confusion around what IMAX actually is, how it landed in the Philippines, and whether the "IMAX" on your ticket is the real deal or a slightly watered-down version. So let's walk through all of it, friend to friend.
Here is everything you have probably wondered about, answered plainly.
Explain Like I'm 5: What even is IMAX?
Okay, imagine a normal movie screen is like a big window you look through to watch a show. IMAX is like knocking out the whole wall so the picture is everywhere you look, even out of the corners of your eyes.
Three things make it special. The screen is giant, as tall as a building with several floors stacked up, and it bends toward you a little like a hug so you feel wrapped up in it. The picture is made from a really big, clear source, so even blown up that huge it never goes blurry, kind of like how a big sticker looks crisp while a tiny one stretched too far looks fuzzy. And the sound is set up just for that one room, so it feels like it is coming from all around you and rumbles right in your tummy.
Put simply: a regular cinema lets you watch the movie, but IMAX tries to make you feel like you are standing inside it.
Who founded IMAX, and who owns it now?
IMAX was founded in 1967 by a group of Canadians: filmmakers Graeme Ferguson, Roman Kroitor, and Robert Kerr, plus engineer William Shaw. Ferguson, Kroitor, and Kerr acted as principal creative-producer owners while Shaw led engineering and systems design.
The filmmakers had worked on multi-screen projection at Expo 67 in Montreal, the world's fair. Audiences loved the immersive multi-projector setups, but running several projectors and screens at once was clunky and fragile. So they set out to build a single system that could throw one much bigger, sharper image, and that became IMAX. The first permanent IMAX theater opened at Ontario Place in Toronto in 1971.
Ownership changed hands decades later. In 1994, investment bankers Richard Gelfond and Bradley Wechsler acquired IMAX Corporation through a leveraged buyout and publicly listed the company. Today IMAX Corporation is a publicly traded company (NYSE: IMAX). It is owned roughly 88% by institutional shareholders, with big names like Vanguard and BlackRock among the holders. Richard Gelfond has been the long-serving CEO, though as of March 2026 he is on a temporary medical leave while recovering from pneumonia, with senior executives running day-to-day operations in the meantime.
Where is IMAX based?
It is a Canadian company at heart. Founded in Montreal in 1967, it is headquartered in Mississauga in the Greater Toronto Area, with operations in New York City and Los Angeles. There is also IMAX China, a subsidiary that trades separately on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
How does IMAX actually make money?
This is the part people rarely think about. IMAX does not really make its money selling you a ticket. It mostly sells to cinemas and studios.
It licenses and sells its projection systems and technology to theater operators, often taking a cut of the box office from IMAX screenings on top of that. It also charges studios to convert their films into the IMAX format through a digital remastering process (they call it DMR). So every time a blockbuster gets an "IMAX version," money changes hands. Basically, IMAX is a technology and licensing business wearing a cinema's clothes. The theaters handle the popcorn.
How did IMAX arrive in the Philippines?
Here is where it gets local. IMAX came to the Philippines in 2006, and it arrived with a bang at SM Mall of Asia in Pasay.
The screen was literally raised by hand in December 2005. Roughly 20 workmen hanging over a railing at the top pulled the screen up, and at the time it was by far the biggest screen in the Philippines and one of the very biggest in the world. It opened branded as the San Miguel Coca-Cola IMAX Theater, a partnership between SM, San Miguel, and Coca-Cola. The mall was inaugurated with a screening of Everest, shown just days after Filipino climber Leo Oracion reached the summit, which is a genuinely nice bit of timing.
That first theater ran on true 15/70mm IMAX film, the gold-standard format. It was originally a traditional film projector using the 15/70 mm film format, the IMAX GT. Then in 2013 it closed briefly to convert to digital and reopened alongside Thor: The Dark World. In a lovely full-circle moment, the old 70mm film projector was dusted off one more time in November 2014 for Christopher Nolan's Interstellar.
The second IMAX in the country opened at SM North EDSA in July 2009, and it was the first in the Philippines to use digital projection.
Who owns and runs IMAX in the Philippines?
Locally, IMAX runs through SM Cinema. SM Cinema operates IMAX theaters in the Philippines in partnership with IMAX Corporation. So the Canadian company supplies the technology and brand, and SM operates the actual theaters inside its malls. It has been an SM show from the very start in 2006.
What if cinemas just "copy" IMAX?
Here is a fair question: what stops a big cinema chain from just building a massive screen, slapping a fancy name on it, and never paying IMAX a cent? Some chains have tried exactly that with their own premium large-format brands. The reason IMAX keeps winning is that the big screen is the easy part. The hard part is everything behind it, and most of that is proprietary.
Start with the projection. On film, the classic IMAX projector uses a technique that holds each frame dead still using a vacuum, so the enormous image does not wobble the way a normal projector would at that size. On digital, the flagship setups use dual projectors overlapping to make the picture brighter and sharper than a single one could manage. These are IMAX's own designs, protected by patents, so a rival cannot simply order the same hardware off a shelf.
Then there is the film format itself. IMAX uses 70mm film stock with fifteen perforations instead of the four in 35mm, shot and projected horizontally rather than vertically, which is why filmmakers nickname it 15/70. That gives it far more image information than standard film, and it is a whole ecosystem of cameras, lenses, and processing that took decades to build.
The part people underestimate most is the studio relationship. IMAX charges studios to remaster their films into the IMAX format, which means a movie gets a specific "IMAX version" that plays only on certified IMAX screens. A random big screen down the street cannot get that version. So even if a competitor matches the size, they cannot offer the actual IMAX cut of the new blockbuster, and that exclusive content is a huge part of what people are buying a ticket for.
Add the calibrated sound tuned to each specific room, plus the certification process that keeps every IMAX auditorium consistent, and you get a business that is genuinely hard to copy. It is not one moat, it is several stacked on top of each other: patented hardware, proprietary format, exclusive studio content, and a trusted brand. The giant screen is just the thing you can see.
Locally, here is what is running under the hood. IMAX in the Philippines uses 4K laser projection with 12-channel immersive audio, and SM Cinema completed a 10-location Laser upgrade program in 2024 to 2025. The biggest screens like MOA and Evia use the CoLa system (Commercial Laser, a single-projector dual-lens setup for the largest screens), while the medium-sized rooms use the more compact Laser XT.
Was IMAX not originally only for giant screens? Why is it in regular malls now?
You are remembering it right, and your instinct is correct. For its first few decades, IMAX really was only those massive, purpose-built screens running on giant 70mm film. Those were expensive, specialized venues, mostly museums, science centers, and theme parks showing nature documentaries. If you saw IMAX back then, it meant a dome or a screen many stories tall.
Two things pushed it into normal multiplexes. First, Hollywood embraced it in the 2000s, especially once Christopher Nolan started actually shooting scenes with IMAX cameras for films like The Dark Knight. Suddenly people wanted IMAX at their regular cinema. Second, IMAX went digital, which let them install systems into existing theater rooms instead of building giant custom halls. That is exactly why the brand now spans everything from true giant screens to fairly ordinary-sized rooms.
What is the "LieMAX" controversy?
When IMAX moved into standard multiplexes, a lot of those new screens were much smaller than the classic ones, sometimes only a bit bigger than a normal screen. Fans nicknamed this "LieMAX," arguing people were paying extra for something well short of the real thing.
There is a specific version of this debate in the Philippines. The most iconic IMAX format is the tall 1.43:1 "full frame" you get from 15/70mm film or the flagship dual-laser projectors. Here is the catch: all local screens project at 1.90:1, and true 1.43:1 IMAX requires dual GT Laser projectors, which no Philippine cinema currently has. So the country has excellent, bright, sharp laser IMAX, but not the very tallest "full frame" experience you may have seen filmmakers rave about online. Good to know, not a dealbreaker for most people, but worth setting expectations.
The takeaway: not all IMAX is equal, so it pays to check the actual screen before booking. Mall of Asia and Vista Evia have the biggest screens locally.
IMAX vs Dolby Cinema: what is the difference?
Since people always ask this in the same breath, here is the quick version.
Think of it as scale versus fidelity. IMAX is about size and immersion, the giant enveloping screen that makes you feel inside the frame. Dolby Cinema is about picture quality and precision: Dolby Vision gives incredible contrast with genuinely black blacks and punchy highlights, and Dolby Atmos puts sound all around and above you in three dimensions. IMAX wins for sweeping blockbusters and space epics shot for the format. Dolby wins for visually moody, detail-heavy films where contrast and precise sound matter most. Neither is objectively better, they just chase different things.
How popular and widespread is IMAX globally?
Very. IMAX operates 1,864 systems across 91 countries and territories as of the end of 2025. On the business side, the company has pointed to a record 1.4 billion dollars in global box office target for the full year, so the format is far from a novelty. It is a genuine global platform for big event movies.
Where can you watch IMAX in the Philippines right now?
SM has expanded it well beyond that one Mall of Asia screen. As of the latest laser upgrade rounds, the lineup includes:
In Metro Manila, you have SM Mall of Asia (Pasay), SM Aura Premier (BGC), SM North EDSA (Quezon City), SM Megamall (Mandaluyong), SM Southmall (Las Piñas), and Vista Mall Evia (Las Piñas). Outside the capital, there is SM Seaside Cebu, SM Lanang Premier (Davao), SM City Clark, and SM City Iloilo, which back in November 2023 became the country's first IMAX with Laser location.
Mall of Asia is still the heavyweight. SM MOA has the largest screen in the country at 24m wide with 570 seats, and it was the first IMAX in the Philippines.
The bottom line
IMAX started as a scrappy Canadian idea in 1967, grew into a global technology company, and landed in the Philippines in 2006 with that hand-raised screen at Mall of Asia. Today it lives inside SM malls across the country with sharp modern laser projection. Is every screen the mega-format the purists dream about? No. But for the right movie, on the right screen, it is still one of the most jaw-dropping ways to watch a film in this country. Pick a big screen, pick a big movie, and let it swallow you whole.