LOS ANGELES — Mike Koenig sat back in his seat for a recent screening of “Mad Max: Fury Road.” But this was no ordinary theater chair.
As the theater darkened and death machines rumbled across the desert on screen, Koenig’s chair rumbled with them. As bullets whizzed by Furiosa, the movie’s heroine played by Charlize Theron, puffs of air shot out of Koenig’s headrest. Wall-mounted fans in the theater gusted desert winds and fog machines pumped smoke from the mayhem.
The 46-year-old software salesman’s Wednesday matinee was a “4-D” movie experience, the kind of rollicking thrill factory once reserved for theme park rides.
With domestic movie theater attendance stagnant in recent years, more theater owners are looking to provide these immersive jolts to goose both moviegoers and box office revenues.
“I loved it,” Koenig said, having paid $26.25 for a “4DX” ticket at Regal Cinemas L.A. Live Stadium 14 in downtown Los Angeles. “If you ever rode bumper cars as a kid, you’d like this.”
Motion seats touting a “4-D” experience can sometimes occupy a row or two in an otherwise normal theater. More souped-up models like the one at L.A. Live can take up an entire auditorium decked out with strobe lights and pneumatic lifts.
With the summer movie season in full swing, movies like “San Andreas,” “Jurassic World,” “Ant-Man” and “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation” are being programmed by motion artists with the bumps and sways necessary for the seats to come to life.
It’s one way for theater owners to offer something that can’t be experienced at home for the average fan.
Shelby Russell, vice president of marketing for L.A. Live, says the 100-seat auditorium that was retrofitted with the 4DX system last June has tripled its revenues, thanks both to greater attendance and the $8 ticket upcharge, not to mention the $4 add-on if the movie is also shown in 3-D.
The setup has helped attract visitors to L.A. who come for the theme parks and studio tours and drop by the 4DX theater for another thrill, he said.
“The attention it’s garnered for our cinema has been fantastic,” Russell said.
4DX is backed by Korean conglomerate CJ Group, which has set up 170 theaters in 33 countries, but just one in the U.S. at L.A. Live. Another company, Torrance, Calif.-based MediaMation Inc., has outfitted about two dozen theaters worldwide with its similar “MX4D” system, but there’s just one in the U.S. in the L.A. suburb of Oxnard.
Canada’s D-Box Inc. leads the pack with nearly 330 installations of its “MFX” seats at theaters worldwide, including 175 in North America, most of which are in the U.S. However, its seats only sway, vibrate and jostle, and are usually placed among non-moving seats in auditoriums. While the less-expensive installation cost has helped D-Box grow quickly at theaters, there’s no snow, fog, scents or strobe lights.
CJ4D Plex, behind the 4DX format, has leg ticklers reach out to give you a surprise tingle — lightning is punctuated with a strobe light. Even scents, from raspberry to burnt tires, help audiences immerse themselves in the on-screen world.
“We don’t think anyone else brings that combination of features,” says Chief Marketing Officer Angela Killoren of CJ4D Plex America.
