70mm Cinerama

By 1963, there were more than 160 theatres in the country capable of showing Cinerama films; but skyrocketing production costs affiliated with producing the complex epics prompted the motion picture industry to search for a less expensive alternative. 70mm proved to be the best solution: cheaper to make, easier to show.

By 1964, Hollywood was churning out a whole new round of 70mm films and marketing them as "Cinerama." Although scholars of the original art form will argue that “70mm Cinerama” films did not deliver the same experience as the three-eyed classics, 70mm films like “2001: A Space Odyssey” nevertheless packed movie houses across the country.

By the early 1970s, however, even 70mm Cinerama films became too expensive to produce on a routine basis. One by one, theaters across the country dismantled their huge floor-to-ceiling screens and mothballed their custom 70mm lenses.

The nation's grand movie houses were either dissected into multi-plex theaters or torn down altogether. The art form that had transfixed America only a decade prior was vanishing.