To see the D-Box version of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides when it premieres in 3-D at the theater May 20, the already inflated price jumps to $21.50.
#Dbox motion seating movie
The major downside: D-Box film screenings cost eight bucks on top of a regular movie ticket. The 19-year-old Montreal-based company’s motion-design team in Burbank, California, gets the studios’ approval before translating on-screen activity to ass-quaking seat action. The two dozen motion-enhanced films the company has D-Boxed since then fall mostly into action, sci-fi and horror-genres that pair well with the technology. Once focused only on home theaters, D-Box started syncing its moving seats to cinema releases with 2009’s Fast & Furious. It’s a cautious entrance into the Chicago market-just 36 chairs in one auditorium-for a company that has seats in 65 theaters around the world. The theater became the first in Illinois to feature the rumble seats with last week’s release of the latest installment of The Fast and the Furious series. “It’s not a roller coaster, but I hope you’re not prone to motion sickness,” says a smiling Guy Marcoux, the marketing VP of D-Box Technologies, at a preview of the chairs at the Muvico Rosemont 18. A muscle car speeds out of a moving train, floating to the ground in slow-motion-and the electro-mechanical actuator on the base of the chair responds, quickly raising up an inch, then decompressing, producing a palpable feeling of weightlessness. During a car chase, an SUV police cruiser violently rolls, whipping my body to the left. In the teaser, Diesel’s Dominic Toretto pistol-whips an extra and my entire seat shakes and pitches to one side.
RECOMMENDED: The best movie theaters in Chicago But watching the trailer to Fast Five while seated in a D-Box motion-simulator chair, I’m gaining a much better appreciation for the power the ersatz Stallone packs. I’ll admit: I don’t know exactly what it feels like to get bashed in the face by Vin Diesel.