Franklin Institute’s IMAX theater will not be reopening

The Franklin Institute’s Tuttleman IMAX Theater is no more.

The only domed, large-format film venue in Philadelphia was closed down with the rest of the science center at the start of the pandemic in March 2020. When the institute reopened after a few months, the IMAX theater remained shuttered with its fate unclear.

Now, leaders say that after a period of examination, they have decided to close it for good, ending the theater’s three-decade run of movies on subjects ranging from pandas, volcanos, and Mars to the Rolling Stones.

The space will be mothballed for the foreseeable future and turned into something else, said Franklin Institute president and CEO Larry Dubinski.

To keep the theater going, Dubinski said, would have required “a new projection system, screen, and everything else.” Ultimately, the science center concluded that “this was not the way to invest dollars and move forward right now.”

The Franklin Institute also considered the financial returns on showing the kind of first-run movies it has hosted in the past. This summer’s Oppenheimer, for instance, would have been a perfect fit for the Franklin’s IMAX theater.

“So many of the proceeds go back to the distributor before you even see something,” Dubinski said, referring to a cut of ticket revenue.

Another factor in the institute’s decision to close the IMAX theater was today’s easy availability of documentaries and entertainment to almost anyone anywhere.

“Many of the types of films that we would have brought here to the Franklin Institute, now you can get on one of a thousand channels at home. And we’re about creating a phenomenal educational experience that is unique,” he said.

Right now, the Franklin Institute is more focused on the rollout of six new permanent science exhibits over the next several years, he said. The first, “Wondrous Space,” opened Nov. 4.

With the disappearance of the Tuttleman theater, Center City is without an IMAX screen. The only other one was at the Regal UA Riverview on Delaware Avenue, according to a Philadelphia Film Society spokesperson, and it closed during the pandemic.

Other IMAX theaters in the Philly area are AMC Philadelphia Mills, AMC Cherry Hill 24, and Regal UA King Of Prussia.

At its best, the domed Tuttleman IMAX Theater gave viewers sweeping, 180-degree wrap-around views of wildlife preserves, underwater worlds, cityscapes, and other locales. It opened in 1990 as part of a much-ballyhooed $72 million addition to the venerable science center on the Parkway.

The Mandell Futures Center, as it was called then, was the first substantial alteration to the grand neo-classical structure since its opening in 1934, and it included new gathering spaces, a parking garage, a restaurant, and gift shops.

The fundraising campaign to build the addition left the Franklin Institute with more debt than it had planned to take on — debt still not paid off. The original $22 million the institute borrowed in 1988 is now a bond debt whose payment in 2023 came to $1,475,000. (The total institute operating budget in 2023 was $27.4 million.)

Dubinski said the debt will be paid off in May 2026, removing a longtime obligation. “To be able to use that money for mission-based work — that will be an exciting day,” he said.

As for the future of the centerpiece of the once-new Futures Center, that’s a question that lies in, well, the future. For now, the former IMAX theater will sit dark and empty.

One of the challenges when you build something that uses the word future, Dubinski said, is that “the future comes really quickly.”