Because it’s going to get your money somehow, dammit, HBO has announced plans to bring two episodes of Game Of Thrones to IMAX theaters, the first time a TV series has been screened in the immersive giant-screen format. According to Entertainment Weekly, season four’s penultimate episode “The Watchers On The Wall” and season finale “The Children” will be remastered and screened in 150 IMAX theaters for one week from January 23-29, along with a full trailer for season five.
Game Of Thrones doesn’t return until April, and teasers so far have been maddeningly brief, so this will hopefully be a satisfying fix for fans craving the hard stuff after subsisting on casting rumors and gimmicky mashups since June. And if any TV series deserves to be seen in IMAX, it’s Thrones, whose cinematic scope rivals that of many big-screen fantasy epics. On the other hand—here in Chicago at least—if you want to watch angry frost giants do battle in a frozen hellscape in January, all you have to do is go outside. Anyway, those wishing to do penance for years of pirating Game Of Thrones by watching two episodes they’ve already seen, but on a really big screen this time, should keep an eye on the IMAX website.