People who go to Digiplex Bloomfield on Monday night to see “Iron Man 3” may need to answer a question at the box office: Are you here to see “Iron Man 3,” or “El Hombre de Hierro Tres”?
On May 6, the cineplex at 863 Park Ave. in the Wintonbury Mall will join other Digiplex theaters around the country by offering major motion pictures with a Spanish-dubbed vocal track.
Tim Keefner, Connecticut operations manager for the Westfield, N.J.-based theater chain Digiplex Destinations, says Bloomfield has planned for months to make this move, but originally planned to do it later in the summer.
“We didn’t intend to roll it out quite this quickly, but we were able to get the drive to do it,” says Keefner, referring to the specialized hard drive to connect to the digital projector.
Bud Mayo, president of Digiplex Destinations, was not available for comment this week, but in March he told a reporter for Daily Variety that the decision to show Spanish-language films was spurred by statistics from the Motion Picture Association of America that American Hispanics have outpaced teens in moviegoing. The average U.S. moviegoer goes to the movies 4.1 times a year, the MPAA reports, while Hispanics go 6.4 times a year and purchase 25 percent of all tickets sold in the country.
According to the 2010 census, people of Hispanic descent make up 14.9 percent of the population of Hartford County, and 13.4 percent of the population statewide.
For starters, Digiplex Bloomfield will show the films once a week, on Monday at 7 p.m. If the Spanish shows are popular, Bloomfield may add a weekend afternoon screening, to draw family crowds.
“That’s still up in the air. We will take the screenings one at a time,” Keefner says. “We’re not ready to commit to a Friday or Saturday night, though. We’re just testing the waters.”
“Iron Man 3” will be the film for the first two weeks of the experiment, to be succeeded on May 20 by “Star Trek Into Darkness” and on May 27 with “Epic.” After that, Bloomfield will gauge whether to continue, Keefner says.
People who see the Spanish-language movies will have to make one small sacrifice: Keefner said that even those movies released in 3D will be released, with Spanish tracks, in 2D only.
Digiplex — which owns 18 theaters in Connecticut, Arizona, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey — also owns the theater in the Lisbon Landing mall, but for now only Bloomfield will offer the Spanish-language movies in Connecticut.
Digiplex inaugurated the Spanish-language films in theaters in California and Pennsylvania. The Spanish-language movies will be G, PG or PG-13 only.
