Just five days after Halloween it’s beginning to look, um… a bit like Christmas at the box office.  “Disney’s A Christmas Carol” opened in the widest release yet for a 3D feature on Friday: 2,035 screens including 181 in IMAX. Disney also booked a few 2D screens a grand total of 3,683 theatres. So with all that exposure, and those extra-fat 3D ticket prices, it comes as no surprise to find Ebenezer Scrooge on top with an estimated Friday total of $9 million. More of a surprise is the strong second place showing of new entry “The Fourth Kind” with Milla Jovovich. The alien-abduction pic took in just under $5 million after opening in 2,529 theatres. George Clooney and “The Men Who Stare at Goats” came in third with $4.5 million from 2,443 theatres and Richard Kelly’s “The Box” barely edged out the “Paranormal Activity” phenomenon to take fifth place with just under $3 million. Check back tomorrow for details and snarky comments on all of the week’s new releases.

Spike TV has posted a sort of new trailer Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland”.  Though most of the footage will look familiar to anyone who caught the teaser trailer that Disney released a few months back, new footage is mixed throughout including extended shots of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter that hint at how spectacular the film will look in its Disney Digital 3D and IMAX formats.  Peek down the rabbit hole after the jump.

IMAX has just announced that Christopher Nolan’s latest film “Inception” will be released next year in IMAX. Great news, right? Unfortunately, the news could be better and here’s why: since the film was shot using conventional 35mm cameras and not using the actual IMAX cameras, the IMAX release is going to be using the IMAX DMR technology to blow up the image to fill the screen. So while it’ll still look good, it won’t be the oh my god quality that was “The Dark Knight”. Look, I’m still extremely excited to see “Inception” in IMAX, I just wish at least part of it was shot using real IMAX cameras. Anyway, we’ve been sent a press release and it’s after the jump. It’s filled with the usual stuff that says how excited everyone is to be working together.

I’m pretty sure there’s only so much visual processing the mind can handle.  At some point it hits overload and you’re not sure what you’re seeing any more and your mind just short-circuits.  Expect to see a lot of drooling faces next December because “Tron Legacy” is coming out in IMAX 3D.  We already knew it would be in 3D and the test footage of that alone blew minds apart at ShoWest and Comic-Con.  Now they want to charge a light cycle right into cerebellums.  I say bring it on but make sure I have someone to drive me home when the film opens on December 17th, 2010.  Click here to read my reaction to the “Tron Legacy” presentation from this year’s Comic-Con.

Spider-Man will be back in IMAX theaters on May 5^th, 2011.  After staking out that critical “First Weekend of Summer” release date for “Spider-Man 4″ back in June, Columbia Pictures today announced that the movie also has its IMAX contracts for the very same date in order.

At this point it would be more surprising if IMAX and Columbia had decided to skip the whole IMAX thing for “Spider-Man 4″.  The franchise has been a huge property in the digitally-enhanced format and we’ve all seen how those IMAX sales can tip a movie over the top financially.  You can read some of what Sony Pictures had to say in today’s press release after the jump.

The Hubble Space Telescope is finally repaired and back in service. What better place to view its space-staring power than a 70 by 50 foot IMAX screen? IMAX and Warner Bros. will release “Hubble 3D” exclusively in IMAX locations across the world on March 19, 2010. The film will celebrate Hubble’s 20th anniversary with an expanded release on April 23 and show how the telescope was repaired by astronauts last May. Toni Myers, who directed “Space Station 3D,” will again produce, direct, and edit the new film. More on Hubble after the jump.

Someone at Paramount must like me. I didn’t have time to see “Star Trek” on IMAX, when it came out May 8, but now I just might. The franchise reboot is getting another run on around 100 IMAX locations this Friday. The reason for the title coming back to the big big screen is pretty simple: it broke IMAX records in May, opening with $8.5 million domestically in its first weekend and continued strong. Unfortunately, it was shelved after only two weeks due to previous commitments with Fox to release “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.” Most films get a four week theatrical run, and now that the summer season has cooled, “Star Trek” will pick up its remaining weeks. More excitement after the jump.

20^th Century Fox and IMAX have finally announced how and when you’ll be able to get tickets for James Cameron’s “Avatar” preview day at participating IMAX theaters and it’s this Monday at noon PST on the official Avatar movie website. They’re doing it first-come, first-serve, which means it’s not going to easy. Also, since there are only 100 IMAX theaters doing the preview at 6 and 6:30pm, demand will far outstrip supply. More after the jump:

The first trailer for Robert Zemeckis’s “A Christmas Carol” has leaked its way onto YouTube and until Disney pulls it, you can watch the trailer after the jump. The only thing to know before watching is, the trailer is in Italian and it was recorded with a video camera inside a movie theater. So…it’s not really the best way to watch the footage for the first time. Saying that, you can still get a good look at what Zemeckis is going for and if you enjoyed “Beowulf” and “The Polar Express”, it looks like he’s doing more of the same. I’d imagine with this trailer leaking, we’ll get the official one any day now. Until then, take a look after the jump:

Opening today is director Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies”. The film is set during the Depression-era’s great crime wave and it’s the story of the government’s attempt to stop legendary criminals John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd. This operation transformed the FBI into the first federal police force. By now you’ve seen the trailers and commercials, so you know the cast is filled with famous faces like Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, Channing Tatum and David Wenham.

Anyway, to help promote the film, our partners at Omelete sent me to cover the international press day and I was able to participate in a small press conference with Christian Bale. During the interview, Christian talked about making “Public Enemies”, the research he did to prepare to play Melvin Purvis, what he’s working on now, and people tried to get him to compare all the different director’s he’s worked with to one another. If you’re a fan of this great actor, you’ll love the interview. The transcript and audio is after the jump:

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” opens July 15^th. The opening 12 minutes have been converted into IMAX 3D. While everyone wants to see the boy wizard on the huge IMAX screen and in 3D…due to Harry Potter’s release date getting pushed back last year and “Transformers Revenge of the Fallen” having a 4 week IMAX contract, only three IMAX theaters in the United States are playing the film opening day. The rest of the country will have to wait until July 29^th.

While this news has already been reported, I have an update. I’ve put together which IMAX theaters are getting the film opening day and they’re the Century City IMAX (Los Angeles), Henry Crown (Chicago), and AMC Loews Lincoln Square (NYC). So if you live in any of these cities and want to see “Harry Potter” opening day, you might want to buy your tickets now. The L.A. one is on sale here - MovieTickets.com. Also, IMAX.com sells tickets so you can check there.

I love IMAX. Not the digital IMAX that’s pretending to be the full screen format. I’m talking about the “holy shit I cannot believe how amazing this is IMAX”. If you saw “The Dark Knight” in a real IMAX theater, you know what I’m talking about. For me, that film was easily the best movie theater experience I had in 2008. It blew everything else out of the water and while the industry seems to think 3-D is the future, I’d argue they should be spending more money building full screen IMAX theaters.

But that’s an argument for another day.

The reason I’m writing about IMAX tonight is at this weekend’s press event for “Transformers Revenge of the Fallen”, an IMAX camera was on display in the Paramount/DreamWorks hospitality suite and I got to speak with the rep from the company on camera. After the jump is the video and you’ll be able to see one of the IMAX cameras they used on “Transformers Revenge of the Fallen” and the rep will explain how the camera works and why they’re so large. If you’re a fan of the format, I’m sure you’re going to like this video. Take a look:

A few hours ago I participated in a press conference with Michael Bay for “Transformers Revenge of the Fallen”. While no major news came out of the press conference, I did learn one interesting bit of info.

After the interview ended, I went up to Bay and asked him how many minutes of deleted scenes would be on the DVD/Blu-ray. He said, “we’re figuring that out right now. It could be seven, eight.”

I then asked him if there was any thought of doing even more in IMAX? He said, “Yeah. I regret not shooting Petra in IMAX. The IMAX is very expensive. To make digital effects in IMAX is expensive. It’s a budget concern really.”

I then asked if he would use IMAX on all his future movies. He replied, “I don’t know. If the movie serves it, but I think it’s a neat idea.”

After that last question I was going to ask what deleted scenes he was talking about…but others started to ask questions and I had another interview to get to. So if you’re a fan of deleted scenes, at least you’ll be getting some later in the year. Look for more from the junket soon.

Paramount/DreamWorks has just released 7 new images from director Michael Bay’s “Transformers Revenge of the Fallen” and they’re after the jump. While none of them are anything special, they’re still worth checking out. Also, if you’ve missed all the previous images that have been released, I’ve added the new ones to our image gallery so you can check out all of them at once.

Finally, I’m seeing “Transformers Revenge of the Fallen” tonight in IMAX. Look for my immediate reaction on Twitter once the film ends. And I’m doing interviews with the cast tomorrow, so check back for those.

If you want to be dwarfed by wizards when “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” hits theatres on July 15th…you’re gonna have to wait a little longer for the dwarfing via IMAX.  According to THR, IMAX is keeping “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” on IMAX screens for an extra two weeks which leaves “Harry Potter” making its IMAX debut on July 29th.  Of course, since we’ve technically been waiting for the film since it was pushed back from November 2008 due to Warner Bros. stellar year with “The Dark Knight”, a couple extra weeks isn’t going to kill anyone.  Unless you have some  terminal illness and your last wish was to see “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”, then it probably will kill you.  The Lord must really not like you.  However, if you do survive long enough to see it in IMAX, you’ll get an additional 12 minutes of 3D footage exclusive to IMAX screens.  Enjoy.  If you can’t wait that long and you really think the Reaper will get you before then, the film will be on one IMAX screen in LA and one IMAX screen in New York City on the 15th.

Not a lot of folks know this, but conventional theatres can only handle a limited amount of robots punching each other.  If robots punch each other too much, then the conventional theatre screen bursts into flames and you can hear the screams of the damned.  It’s an expensive and creepy restriction.

But director Michael Bay will take advantage of IMAX and use its mighty screen size to produce a slightly longer cut that features more robot fighting.  On his website he notes that he shot four scenes with IMAX cameras and those scenes will fill the screen.  He also informs “haters” to “beware”.  Bay knows that every time he fills an IMAX screen, a “hater” gets rectal bleeding.  I’d go into how all this works but it’s highly technical and not very exciting.  Exciting is robots fighting.  You’ll probably see a lot of that when “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” hits conventional and IMAX theatres on June 24th.  Click here to find out if there’s going to be gigantic robot fighting near you.