Question of the Day - 30 March 2023

It’s difficult to imagine all these decades later, but a geodesic dome once arose on the north side of the Caesars Palace property and this was the home of the Omnimax cinema.

As CinemaTreasures.org describes the place, “The Omnimax featured laid-back seating with surround sound and an overhead screen encompassing the entire range of vision.”

It was a grand venue, but no reminiscence we could find mentioned an animatronic Caesar.

It opened in 1979, but was bedeviled with problems almost from the start, ones that you wouldn’t associate with the dry Nevada climate.

As former employee Paul Mayer reported in 2001, “Caesars closed their Omnimax theater on Wednesday June 24 after an almost 21-year run. It was the last full-time IATSE-staffed projection booth in the state of Nevada. I was privileged to operate there myself 1989-1991 and again in 1996. Even though in its later years, it wasn't a very good theatre (the screen had been painted over, plus it was stained from fire-pipe and dome leaks)."

Mayer appended some Omnimax history, including the story of one of the few made-for-Omnimax films: My Strange Uncle starring Cloris Leachman. "The film was backed in part by Caesars [Palace], an attempt to get something into the theater other than museum films. Unfortunately, it bombed big-time. We weren’t allowed to run it, even privately. Apparently, there were financial/legal problems with that production that rendered even a mention of it taboo.

Further down, Mayer added, “Caesars is in the middle of a long-term expansion and modernization project, and the focus on entertainment in the hotel is being scaled back. Originally, the dome was going to come down in 1996, but it got a reprieve until now due to hotel ownership and expansion plan changes. My understanding is that the phase-two tower (adding another 850 rooms) is to go up where the dome is now. The hotel has already announced that the Circus Maximus showroom will be closed later this year, to make room for the phase-three tower (another 850 rooms plus more high-roller suites).”

Returning to the condition of the theater, he wrote, “The dome screen looked terrible — it was an embarrassment to all of us. The problem was the dome leaked badly from day one and continued to do so despite repeated attempts by the hotel over the years to seal it. We used to take the theater down for a week once a year, mostly to clean the rusty water stains from the screen. 

“Then around 1990, some accountant figured he'd save some money by painting rather than cleaning the screen. Some Spitz Dome people heard about this and came by to see the result — and just laughed. The paint job, plus more water stains on top of it, finished us off image-quality-wise and the hotel didn't want to pay for a new screen (about $300,000 at the time). The opening of the Luxor 3D IMAX (staffed by a non-IA ex-Century crew) and a 3D IMAX DOME simulator ride (also non-IA) next door in the Forum Shoppes were more nails in the coffin. The hotel started booking only the cheapest titles that IMAX producers were offering, refusing to get into bidding wars with the competition. That pretty much killed the old place off.”

The Omnimax theater may be largely forgotten, but it is not entirely gone. From its bones arose the Colosseum, home to the biggest names in showbiz — and no leaks.