MacGillivray Freeman Films, the world’s foremost independent producer and distributor of original giant-screen 70mm films, will re-release its blockbuster giant-screen documentary EVEREST in February 2022 in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the production company’s historic filmmaking expedition that captured the first-ever IMAX images from the top of Mount Everest.
POLARTEC and parent company Milliken are the Global Presenting Sponsors of the film, which has been digitally remastered in 16k resolution. The critically acclaimed film was first released in 1998 and has since earned more than $152m in worldwide ticket sales, making it the highest-grossing giant-screen documentary of all time.
Narrated by Academy Award nominee Liam Neeson and featuring the music of George Harrison, Everest is the dramatic true story of a team of four climbers who ascended Mount Everest just days after fellow mountaineers and friends died in the 1996 Mount Everest disaster.
“Everest captured the world’s imagination when it was released nearly twenty-five years ago, and this new edition will allow a new generation to be inspired by the film’s emotional story of human triumph over adversity,” said producer and director Greg MacGillivray.
“With the very latest in 16k digital scanning technology, the film will look as if it was filmed yesterday, with spectacular sharpness, clarity and contrast in the images. Audiences will feel like they are there on the summit, standing on the top of the world.”
To prepare the film’s pristine new 16k digital images, the MacGillivray Freeman post-production team is using the same film scanner that was custom-made for the filmmakers of Apollo 11 to digitise NASA’s 70mm archival footage from its mission to the moon.
“Polartec, at its core, is the outdoors. In the forty years since we invented technical fleece and beyond, our fabrics have been a key part of the outdoor experience,” says Steve Layton, president of Polartec. “We were a sponsor twenty-five years ago, and to be a global presenting sponsor for the anniversary release of Everest means a great deal.”
The MacGillivray Freeman film crew was filming on the mountain when the historic storm of 1996 claimed the lives of eight climbers, a tragedy that became an international news sensation chronicled in Jon Krakauer’s best-selling book Into Thin Air. The filmmakers became a key part of rescue efforts to save other lives on the mountain.
Everest’s release in 1998 was the largest network-wide rollout ever for a large-format film and shattered all previous giant-screen theatre attendance records. Less than one year from its release, it became the fastest-grossing giant-screen documentary film in history. Everest is produced by Greg MacGillivray, Alec Lorimore and Stephen Judson and co-directed by MacGillivray, Judson and David Breashears.
Photos courtesy of MacGillivray Freeman Films.
