Both parts will be filmed entirely with a new IMAX camera.
The culmination of over a decade of shared-universe storytelling, drawing from one of the biggest and most famous Marvel comic events, Avengers: Infinity War Parts I & II warrant the biggest possible canvas, and that’s exactly what they’re going to get. They’re also going to be the first films shot entirely in digital IMAX. Oh boy.
Age of Ultron is already taking over the globe the way its predecessor did, and with Captain America: Civil War on the horizon, it no longer feels weird to be talking about a movie every single day a whole year before it opens. For better or for worse, that’s what Marvel has done for movies, and IMAX is doing all it can for Marvel in return. They’ve been central to the Film Vs Digital debate, with their 70mm cameras being one of the best arguments in favour of keeping the former alive (Interstellar, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice were all partially shot in ‘real’ IMAX), and while the debate is far from over, there’s no reason for them not to involve themselves in cinematic innovation on all fronts. They’re damn good at it, after all.
The new IMAX/ARRI 2D digital camera is a customized version of the Alexa 65, which we won’t see in action until Emmanuel Lubezki uses it on Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s The Revenant (hooray for natural light! *jerk off motion*), but it’s supposedly larger than the equivalent of 5-perf (the number perforations, or little holes on the side of the film strip, that make up a single frame), and while that’s nowhere near 70mm IMAX’s incredible 15, it’s still a tad bigger than once-industry standard 35mm’s 3 or 4. So while digital isn’t even close to catching up to 65mm or proper IMAX (65mm film strip run vertically through an IMAX film camera), the Alexa 65 is probably the next best thing. We’ve already seen the beautiful images an Alexa with a 35mm sensor is capable of capturing in the right hands with the likes of Skyfall, so a clearer version of that at the massive* digital IMAX aspect ratio the new camera seems to offer (presumably a 1.9:1, compared to the 2.35 we’re used to) coupled with the new laser projection systems they’re already rolling out means the ending to Marvel’s Phase 3 is going to be big big big. In fact, they’re already testing it out by using the camera for select action scenes during Civil War.
*still inferior to 70mm IMAX’s 1.43!
And it makes sense, considering Thanos is on his way to collecting gems that’ll give him control of literally everything in existence before he faces of against the old Avengers, the New Avengers, Captain Marvel, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and maybe even The Defenders and the cast of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for all we know. Just imagine. Iron Man and The Vision fighting alongside Rocket Racoon and Daredevil? That’s layers upon layers of different kinds of characters from different worlds that need to fill up the same frame, which was part of why Joss Whedon opted for the 1.85:1 for The Avengers back in 2012. We’ve already seen what the digital IMAX aspect ratio can do for both scale (Godzilla, Pacific Rim) and depth when it comes to post-converted 3D (Gravity) so we know for a fact the studio is pulling out all the stops when it comes to giving Joe & Anthony Russo some of the biggest toys to work with, and we won’t even have to deal with shifting frame sizes by then. When it comes to IMAX, bigger is better.
Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 comes out May 2018, with Part 2 due the following year.
Source: IMAX Corporation