Following a full day of Internet outrage over Aziz Ansari’s courageous exposé of the Imax Corporation’s incredible shrinking screens, the company’s CEO, Richard Gelfond, has finally made a statement. He tells the Street:
“IMAX did 15% of Star Trek’s total domestic box office in the whole country on only 138 screens [which is less than 2% of all movie theatres]… This is compared to the earlier releases of Watchmen, where we did 12% of the box office and Monsters and Aliens, where we did around 10%. Clearly a lot of people are going back to IMAX theaters… The overwhelming majority of comments on [Aziz Ansari]’s blog this morning, more than 90% of them, are vehemently disagreeing with him. And consumers are confirming this with their continued purchases of tickets.”
We haven’t read all of Anari’s comments (573 at press time), but we’re pretty sure Gelfond’s last statistic is untrue. Regardless, we don’t expect his siding with a faction of trolls here will muzzle Aziz and his army of Twitter followers, who seem to have a perfectly reasonable complaint.
Earlier: Aziz Ansari Uncovers Massive IMAX Fraud
Update: Ansari has challenged Gelfond to a televised debate.