Jo writes in and helps us better understand why Lucasfilm is not producing a Revenge of the Sith IMAX feature. Apparently, the film could be converted in 11 days, so there's still hope. World Enteractive has part of the transcript of a conference call with IMAX investors where the topic came up.

Marsh: Sure, I just wanted to focus on the film slate for a second. I think you?ve put together a pretty good film slate for the year, but there?s a pretty major picture coming out two weeks from today by a gentleman with whom you?ve had some relations in the past who seems to like your product. Are we too close to the release window for you to do anything with that, or are you just not interested in doing anything with that film?

Wechsler: You?re talking about Star Wars?

Marsh: Yeah

Gelfond: Look, I believe that we were interested in doing something with that film, but a variety of factors, including their postproduction schedule, as well as the potential economics just didn?t work out. So, you know, every picture you have there?s a lot of criteria that go into it, and it includes the nature of the film, where they are in the postproduction process, how practical it is for you to do it, and a big one is what are the financial terms going back and forth, and it is a picture we had talked to them about, but for a variety of reasons it isn?t going to happen. As Brad went through the math at the first part of the presentation, to make this really attractive for exhibitors, you have to do a million dollars a year in box office, and we?re really comfortable we have a great film slate. You know, if it had worked out, that would have been great, but we think our film slate is great without it.

Marsh: And that one might have given you $500,000 out of the gate. That particular producer has publicly expressed an interest in perhaps reformatting all of the films. Can you just talk about what the potential is with regard to that and how that might play into a future film slate, and then also, more generally, has the time in fact decreased in terms of your ability to turn a film. I mean, I think that the last time we had spoken, you were at about a month for you to reformat a film. Have you been able to compress that at all?

Wechsler: I think I?m going to go with the second question first. I think we were even quicker than a month for Spiderman last year, right?

Gelfond: I think for Robots it was 11 days.

Wechsler: Yeah, so we?re doing it in half that time. So, yes we continue to make progress. It?s not like Moore?s Law. You can?t do it in a day.

Head there for more!