Marcus Theatres Corp. has announced that their Westown Cinema will feature a new 500-seat "Ultraview" theater, boasting a 75' x 32' screen complete with digital sound, stadium seating and a projection system capable of delivering high quality images to such a large screen. The new screen is expected to debut in May 1999. (Just in time for a certain popular movie to be released...)

This is big news for the Milwaukee-area movie-goer, since the largest screen on record in Wisconsin is the #1 screen at the Oriental theater in Milwaukee, scaling in at 40 feet. According to Marcus Theatres Corp. President Bruce J. Olson, Westown was chosen for its centralized location in the Milwaukee Metro area. We theorize that it will likely be an indicator for the popularity of big screens once again.

The BigScreen Cinema Guide applauds Marcus Theatres Corporation for re-introducing a big-screen movie experience in the Milwaukee area. Until this time, the closest big-screen movie theater was the fabulous McClurg Court theater in Chicago, Illinois. While we don't expect the Westown theater to match the experience of McClurg Court's 75'-wide, THX-certified, 70mm-equipped, SDDS-and-DTS-and-Dolby-Digital-equipped grand lower theater, we look forward to this new installation and more like it around Milwaukee and Wisconsin. (There is no news about the possibility of this "Ultraview" theater being THX-certified, but we plan to find out!)

Kudos to Marcus for taking this leap in enhancing the movie-going experience!

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