SM brings cutting-edge cinematic experience

MANILA, Philippines - SM Cinema is the largest cinema exhibitor in the country today, operating 226 cinemas in 39 SM Malls nationwide. With upcoming branches in SM Masinag, SM San Fernando and SM Consolacion Cebu, SM Cinema continues to expand by putting up two more IMAX Theaters - one in SM Southmall and one in SM Clark.

SM Digital Theaters opened its doors to the public on Nov. 14, 2007 at The Block SM City North EDSA with Beowulf 3D as its first movie shown. Since then, SM Digital Theater opened up opportunities for 3D cinema and featured some of the biggest 3D movies like Up, A Christmas Carol, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Avatar, Clash of the Titans, Shrek Forever After, Despicable Me, Megamind giving moviegoers a fully-immersive experience.

SM Digital Theater shows its flexibility by also showing 2D Hollywood movies like Transformers 2, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, G.I. Joe, Wolfman and Inception. The difference is the unparalleled clarity of movies compared to movies shown in regular 35 mm film.

SM Digital Theaters took a giant leap ahead of the digital pack when it became the first cinema to bring in the cutting-edge motion effect seat simulators last December 2009. SM Digital Theater is the only theater to offer seats which move with every action packed movie scene. With the innovation, SM Digital Theater adds a whole new dimension to the cinematic experience.

Since its first branch at The Block, SM City North EDSA, SM Digital Theater has rapidly grown with the birth of 25 more branches nationwide. SM Digital Theater continues to stamp its place as the leader in digital technology by bringing this cutting-edge cinematic experience to millions of Filipinos nationwide.

Once again SM Cinema paves the way for the ultimate cinematic experience. After opening the first ever IMAX Theater in the Philippines at the SM Mall of Asia back in 2006, SM Cinema raised the bar with the country’s first IMAX Digital Theater at the SM City North EDSA on July 16, 2009. SM Cinema strengthened its lead in the race for technological evolution with the first IMAX Digital Theater in Cebu reaching out to millions of Filipinos outside the metro. IMAX Theater SM Cebu opened with a bang last July 9, 2010 in time for the release of the highly-anticipated Christopher Nolan movie, Inception. This year, SM Cinema is bringing the most immersive movie experience to SM Southmall and SM Clark as it opens the two newest IMAX Digital Theaters in July.

IMAX Theater SM City Cebu and the ones opening in SM Southmall and SM Clark are equipped with IMAX’s digital projection system which will deliver The IMAX ultimate movie experience to all its moviegoers.

IMAX Theater’s digital theater system uses a comprehensive suite of proprietary IMAX technologies, that when integrated together, creates an experience that consistently puts the audience in the movie.

This is the world’s most advanced digital theater system and is superior to all conventional digital systems just as IMAX’s film-based system is superior to conventional film-based systems.

A first and only in the Philippines, WINEMA (We Interact with the Cinema) at SM Cinema is a groundbreaking innovation which turns the whole movie audience into human joysticks through interactive cinema gaming. The project launched on May 2010 in SM Megamall with Boink Out (an Arkanoid game) and Power Catcher (catching falling products). Due to insistent public demand, WINEMA was launched in SM North Edsa The Block Cinema 1 and SM Mall of Asia Cinema 3.

The elements of the game are fairly easy. With a motion sensitive camera, movie watchers will maneuver the character on screen left and right by waving their arms in the air according to the direction they want it to follow. Each game will run for 1:30 minutes so the movie audience needs to accumulate as much points under the given time.

Aside from playing Winema for free, the movie audience that gets to beat the high score will receive a prize for each audience member.

New games will be introduced regularly. Winema schedule: Fridays at 6 p.m. onwards, Saturdays, Sundays, and Holidays. Watch out for SM Cinema’s Winema Wars, a competition for the best Winema players this year.