IMAX is selling the ending of Dune: Part Three before almost anyone else sees it. Its news page lists Insider Screenings of the film in IMAX 70mm on Monday, December 14, 2026, four days ahead of the December 18 release date IMAX announced in April. The listing also shows what the two ticket lines mean: a 70mm film projector in a short list of halls, or 4K laser projection across the rest of the network.
What an IMAX 70mm listing actually promises
IMAX 70mm is booked by projector, not by brand name. The Insider Screenings page names the theatres taking part and nothing else: 25 venues in the United States and nine in Canada. Some are multiplex auditoriums, such as Regal LA Live in Los Angeles and Cineplex Cinemas Vaughan in Toronto. Others are museum screens, including the AutoNation IMAX at Fort Lauderdale’s Museum of Discovery & Science. IMAX adds that ticket-on-sale dates and showtimes vary by country and that local listings are the final word.
The format itself is about frame size. On its Filmed For IMAX page, IMAX says filmmakers shoot with its 1.90:1 or 1.43:1 aspect ratios in mind, “using expanded scenes that open vertically to fill the entire IMAX screen”, and choose IMAX film cameras or IMAX-certified digital cameras before production. The company calls its film cameras the highest-resolution cameras it offers.
IMAX with Laser is the everyday version
The other line on the ticket is IMAX with Laser, the 4K laser system IMAX has been installing across its installed base. IMAX describes a new optical engine with custom designed lenses that produces brighter images with increased resolution, deeper contrast and the widest range of colors it has put on screen, plus 12-channel sound with side and overhead channels. Reach is the real difference. In the Cinemark agreement IMAX announced on October 27, 2025, twelve existing Cinemark systems were to move to laser and four new laser halls were added in the United States. The same release puts IMAX’s network at 1,829 systems in 89 countries and territories as of September 30, 2025.
With a tremendous slate ahead in 2026 highlighted by a number of Filmed for IMAX and IMAX 70mm film releases, we look forward to working with Cinemark to deliver the most immersive cinematic experiences to its customers and growing the value of our longstanding partnership.
Rich Gelfond, CEO of IMAX, October 27, 2025
The film side of that deal names three Cinemark halls due to receive IMAX 70mm projectors: Seven Bridges in Woodridge, Illinois, Carefree Circle in Colorado Springs and Tinseltown in Rochester, New York. IMAX said all three would be operational before Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, the first theatrical release shot entirely in IMAX film, opened on July 17, 2026. All three appear on the December 14 list, the closest thing IMAX publishes to a map of where its film projectors run.
What IMAX does not say
IMAX publishes no spec sheet comparing the two formats and no count of its 70mm screens, so the honest comparison is availability, not numbers. It does not say how many 70mm projectors run today, whether every hall listed for one title is listed for the next, or whether the Cinemark installations finished on schedule. If the ticket says IMAX 70mm, expect film projection in one of the named halls. If it says IMAX with Laser, expect 4K laser in the mainstream auditorium. For expanded scenes, check the title’s listing, because IMAX puts 1.43:1 sequences in select venues of both types.
