IMAX Built Pop-Up Theater for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Premiere

What do you do when you don't have an IMAX theater ready to host a major premiere in the location [...]

By ComicBook.com Staff

What do you do when you don't have an IMAX theater ready to host a major premiere in the location you want? Well, just go ahead and build one in six days, of course! That's what IMAX did to premiere Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in China on one of their patented large-format screens. Over the course of six days, the IMAX team transformed the Beijing Water Cube into a full IMAX experience.

The time-lapse video above shows how they did it, from conception to installation of the screen, the projector (which seems to have taken the longest time) and the theater seating to accomodate the Chinese premiere of the film. It's a remarkable feat, and a good way to make a great first impression on Chinese audiences. As JediNews, who spotted the video, Star Wars: The Force Awakens did great in the large market of China, pulling in around $120 million. If Rogue One, which has the added bonus of starring actors Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen, can get close or match that number, it should skyrocket past the worldwide mark of $1 billion.

Currently sitting at $834.5 million after less than three full weeks in theaters, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has been a huge success for Lucasfilm, showing their new series of standalone films can stand on their own after all. With the next in the series being Han Solo, and having the name recognition associated with the character, the future is bright for the galaxy far, far away.

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(Photo: IMAX)

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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is in theaters now. Directed by Gareth Edwards, it's the first of the new standalone features from Lucasfilm and Disney, which take place outside the core "Skywalker Saga" of films noted by an Episode number. Rogue One tells the story of the small band of rebels that were tasked with stealing the plans to the first Death Star. The story spins directly off the opening crawl from the original Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. In that crawl, it read: "Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet."

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