Crossroads 20 to get an IMAX screen

The Crossroads 20 movie theater in Cary will soon become home to the Triangle's second IMAX screen.

Regal Entertainment, which owns the theater, began construction yesterday to convert one of its screens to the IMAX format, confirmed company spokesman Chad Browning. The rest of the theater will remain open during the construction, and work should be completed by late August.

IMAX theaters are growing in popularity as more Hollywood movies are released in 3-D formats and the public demand for such films increases despite the fact that IMAX movie tickets command a steeper price. Thus far, the only IMAX option in the Triangle has been the theater inside the Marbles Kids Museum in downtown Raleigh.

Browning would not disclose the cost of the project, but the National Association of Theater Owners estimates the cost of building a new IMAX theater from scratch at about a million dollars.

Regal currently operates 45 IMAX screens in its 546 theaters nationwide. Browning said the company evaluates things like demographics to determine whether a market will get an IMAX and did not rule out the addition of other IMAX screens in the Triangle.

"It depends on demand," he said. "Your larger [markets] are typically the areas that would have multiple IMAX screens. It depends on population and if an area can support multiple IMAX screens."