Film Threat was on hand Friday night at Cosm Los Angeles for the premiere of IT in Shared Reality — the venue’s fourth experiential cinema title with Warner Bros. and its first horror experience. It had all the trappings of a Hollywood premiere, if that premiere had been taken over by Pennywise the Clown. Red balloons floated everywhere you looked, and the bars poured IT-inspired cocktails: the S.S. Georgie, a yellow-to-blue number with Tito’s Vodka, Yellow Chartreuse, and a blue sugar rim; and The Dancing Clown, a blood-red martini of Código Reposado Tequila, Cointreau, and blood orange, rimmed in black salt. The popcorn — served in boxes printed with red balloons and the warning “Don’t See It Alone” — came loaded with candy peanuts, cherry soft candies, cotton candy, and a “bloody” chocolate syrup that turned the whole thing into a delicious bloody mess. Derry’s answer to a concession stand. Director Andy Muschietti himself was on hand for the festivities.
Before the doors to the dome opened, Cosm President and CEO Jeb Terry, Warner Bros.’ Scott Coleman, and IT filmmakers Andy and Barbara Muschietti took the stage to set the scene.
Terry opened by leaning into the tagline. “They say, ‘Don’t see It alone.’ Good news is, we’re not alone tonight,” he told the packed house, promising that every Shared Reality installment has to be “bigger, better, badder” than the last. He’d later coin the line of the night: “While this might be our fourth cinema in shared reality, it’s our first in scared reality” — a phrase he credited to Cosm team member Justin Greenville.
Red balloons float past the film’s infamous ‘Very Scary’ door on a display wall at the IT in Shared Reality premiere at Cosm Los Angeles.
“You’re not gonna just see the movie, you’re gonna see an extraordinary version of this movie.”
Coleman traced the partnership back to its hard-hat days. “On May 1st of 2024, we took our initial walkthrough of this venue, and in hard hats while this building was under construction, Warner Bros. embarked on a first-of-its-kind theatrical partnership with the world-class team of executives here at Cosm,” he said, noting the relationship has remained theatrically exclusive across all four films — The Matrix, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and now IT. He also revealed that choosing the first horror title was never much of a debate: from the very first conversations during The Matrix, one film “stood out” to launch the jump scare format in Shared Reality.
Then came the main event. Andy Muschietti, whose 2017 adaptation of Stephen King’s novel remains the highest-grossing horror film of all time, made the pitch directly to the half of the crowd who admitted they’d never seen the movie. “You’re not gonna just see the movie, you’re gonna see an extraordinary version of this movie,” he said. “When we started working, I realized what actually the potential of showing this movie in this format was, and it just blew me away.”
Barbara Muschietti kept it short and grateful, recalling how the project landed in their laps. “We got the call from Jeff Goldstein saying, ‘We’d like to do this.’ I had no idea what this was. We came to see what this was, and we were blown away,” she said. “We hope that this format, this movie, is seen across the country and hopefully internationally soon.”
She may get her wish. Terry closed by announcing that Cosm’s fourth venue opens in Detroit in a matter of weeks, before leading the entire crowd in a full-throated chant of “You’ll float too” — and sending us up the escalators into the dome.
Then it was our turn to float. The film itself showcases Cosm’s signature Shared Reality, and from the opening frames, we weren’t watching Derry, Maine — we were in it. Here’s how it works: the film plays at the center of Cosm’s 87-foot, 12K+ LED dome, while custom-built screen extensions push the world of the movie out past the edges of the frame, wrapping it around and above the audience. As the story moves, so does the environment — the quiet streets of Derry give way to the eerie woods, then to the town’s dirty, wet sewers, the dome’s walls dripping around you, until you’re fully inside the nightmare that is Pennywise the Clown.
A yellow paper boat evoking Georgie’s S.S. Georgie sails beneath a rain-soaked screen at the IT in Shared Reality premiere at Cosm Los Angeles.
“Your peripheral vision — the thing that keeps you safe in a normal theater — is taken away from you…”
A flat screen simply can’t replicate the effect on a horror film. Your peripheral vision — the thing that keeps you safe in a normal theater — is taken away, and the intensified sound design makes every silence feel like a trap. When the film’s scares hit, they don’t stay politely inside a frame — they surround you, and the audience reacts as one, screaming and laughing in waves, which is exactly the point of the format.
Terry’s team member may have coined the phrase as a joke, but after a night in the dome with Pennywise, it’s simply the truth: for this event, “Shared Reality” might as well be called “Scared Reality.”
IT in Shared Reality is now playing at Cosm Los Angeles, Dallas, and Atlanta, with Cosm Detroit opening soon. Tickets and details are available at cosm.com.
