Picture a December evening on the Grand Strand. The beach crowds have thinned to dog walkers and shell hunters, the ocean has gone winter-blue, and over at The Market Common the string lights are up along Deville Street. Inside the movie theater at the heart of the district, a screen nearly fifty-five feet wide flickers to life, laser projectors throw an image sharper than anything this coast has ever seen, and a sold-out house of 221 recliners settles in for the desert winds of Arrakis.

That’s not a daydream. It’s December 18, 2026 — and it’s really happening.

The Georgia Theatre Company, which purchased the fourteen-screen theater at The Market Common at the end of 2025, has confirmed plans for a top-to-bottom renovation of the entire cinema — and the headline within the headline is that the largest auditorium is being converted into a full IMAX® with Laser experience, the only IMAX in the entire Myrtle Beach area. The timing is no accident: the new auditorium is scheduled to be fully installed and ready by December 18, the same day Dune: Part Three opens nationwide.

For movie lovers along the Grand Strand — and for the vacationing families who’ve always folded a movie night into their beach week — this is the biggest screen-related news to hit the area in years. Here’s the full story, the timeline, and how to build it into your next North Myrtle Beach getaway.

The Big News: IMAX Returns to the Grand Strand

GTC President Bo Chambliss confirmed the plans to MyHorryNews on July 28, and the details paint an ambitious picture. The company originally bought the Market Common theater intending a straightforward renovation — new recliners throughout, a general refresh of a cinema that has anchored the district since 2008. But as the renovation planning progressed, Chambliss said, the company decided to go further and add an IMAX auditorium, encouraged by how strongly the one existing IMAX in GTC’s circuit has performed.

The numbers tell you how serious the commitment is. The new IMAX screen will stretch nearly 55 feet wide, and the converted auditorium will hold 221 seats — every one of them a recliner. GTC has signed a deal with IMAX to add five auditoriums across its portfolio of theaters, with Myrtle Beach and Augusta, Georgia as the first two announced projects. When the screen lights up in December, it will be the only IMAX theater anywhere in the Myrtle Beach area.

Chambliss described IMAX with Laser as the finest presentation available anywhere in the movie exhibition business, and said that’s precisely the point: audiences want to see the newest releases on the biggest, best screen possible, and that’s what draws people back out to theaters. Bringing that premium experience to the people of Myrtle Beach, he said, is something the company is genuinely excited about.

The Renovation, Phase by Phase

The project unfolds in two phases, designed so the theater never goes dark. If permitting proceeds on schedule, construction begins in September 2026 with the phase that includes the IMAX conversion plus upgrades to roughly half of the theater’s fourteen auditoriums. The IMAX auditorium is slated to be complete and showing movies by December 18. Then comes a roughly two-week holiday breather — all fourteen auditoriums open for the busiest moviegoing stretch of the year — before phase two begins in January 2027, renovating the remaining auditoriums. The finish line is the end of March 2027, when the entire theater will feature luxury recliner seating, reserved seating, and the IMAX crown jewel.

The practical upshot for visitors: the theater stays open through the entire project, with a portion of the auditoriums running at all times. If your beach trip lands mid-renovation, you’ll still catch a movie — you just might walk past some construction curtains on the way to your seat.

What Makes IMAX with Laser Different

Plenty of theaters advertise a “big screen.” IMAX with Laser is a different animal, and it’s worth understanding why locals and visitors alike are counting the days.

Traditional digital projectors push light through a lamp; IMAX with Laser uses a laser-driven projection system that delivers crisp 4K imagery with noticeably deeper blacks, brighter brights, and a wider range of color than a standard auditorium can produce. On a screen nearly 55 feet across, that clarity does something to your peripheral vision — the frame stops feeling like a window you’re watching and starts feeling like a place you’re standing in. Pair it with IMAX’s signature precision sound system, tuned so that a whisper lands as clearly in the back row as in the front, and you get the kind of presentation filmmakers actually have in mind when they shoot for the format.

That’s why the biggest releases — the space epics, the superhero tentpoles, the films people drive hours to see properly — increasingly premiere with IMAX as the main event. Until now, Grand Strand movie fans had to make that drive to Charleston or beyond. Come December, the format’s best version lives twenty minutes down Highway 17.

December 18: A Premiere Worth Circling

Opening a brand-new IMAX auditorium is a big moment for any theater. Opening it on the exact release date of Dune: Part Three — the conclusion of one of the most visually celebrated film trilogies of the decade, and a franchise practically synonymous with the IMAX format — is a statement of intent.

Expect that opening weekend to be an event. Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films have been the definitive see-it-in-IMAX experience for millions of moviegoers, and the Grand Strand will get to see the saga’s finale the way it was meant to be seen, on day one, without leaving the coast. For anyone planning a December beach getaway, it’s a ready-made anchor for the trip: winter rental rates at their friendliest, holiday lights along the coast, oyster roasts and Christmas shows in full swing — and now a blockbuster premiere on the area’s biggest, brightest screen to cap it off. Our guide to the area’s Myrtle Beach events calendar can help you round out the rest of that week.

A Theater With a Story of Its Own

The theater receiving all this attention has been part of Grand Strand life for a long time. It opened in April 2008 as the anchor of the then-brand-new Market Common district, a fourteen-screen cinema built with stadium seating and a touch of grandeur unusual for a beach-town multiplex. Generations of vacationing families know it as the rainy-day salvation of many a beach week — the place you ducked into when a summer thunderstorm rolled through and came out two hours later to sunshine.

There’s a deeper layer of history under the popcorn, too. The Market Common itself rose on the grounds of the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base, which closed in 1993, and the district wears that heritage proudly — streets named for base commanders, memorial markers scattered among the shops, and the moving Valor Memorial Garden a short walk from the theater doors. Watching a film about heroism on a giant screen built where Air Force jets once taxied has a certain poetry to it.

The Georgia Theatre Company took over the cinema in late 2025, adding it to a family-owned circuit with roots in the movie exhibition business stretching back generations. The renovation now underway is the biggest investment in the building since the day it opened.

Make a Night of It at The Market Common

One of the pleasures of catching a movie at this particular theater is everything within two blocks of it. The Market Common is a walkable urban village of shops, restaurants, parks, and tree-lined streets — the kind of place where dinner-and-a-movie becomes an entire evening without ever moving the car.

Arrive early and stroll. Travinia Italian Kitchen & Wine Bar sets the tone for a proper date night before an evening showtime, while Tupelo Honey brings its Carolina-mountain Southern cooking — fried chicken, cathead biscuits, the works — to a lively patio scene. Families gravitate to Nacho Hippo’s playful cantina energy, and there’s a bookstore to browse and boutiques to wander when you’ve got time before the trailers. After the credits roll, Grand Park’s lakeside walking path is a fine place to argue about the ending under the stars, and in warmer months the park hosts festivals, farmers markets, and outdoor concerts that make the whole district hum.

It’s the rare movie theater where the pre-show and after-party are built right into the neighborhood — and after the renovation, the main event will finally match the setting.

Movie Night From Your Beach Rental

From North Myrtle Beach, The Market Common is an easy outing — roughly half an hour down Highway 17 or the quicker Highway 31 bypass, straight past the airport to the Farrow Parkway exit. That puts a genuine IMAX premiere within reach of every beach house and condo along the northern Strand, whether you’re planning a rainy-afternoon escape in July or a December blockbuster pilgrimage.

It slots beautifully into the rhythm of a beach vacation, too. Guests staying in Cherry Grove Beach or along Ocean Drive can spend the morning on the sand, rinse off, and make a mid-afternoon matinee with time to spare for dinner in the district. Families based in Crescent Beach or Windy Hill sit even a few minutes closer to the Farrow Parkway drive. And a movie night is just one thread in the larger tapestry — the full menu of things to do in Myrtle Beach surrounds The Market Common with attractions, and a fall vacation in North Myrtle Beach pairs the shoulder season’s festivals with the renovation’s opening act.

Come December, expect “we saw Dune in IMAX at the beach” to become a genuine vacation memory — the kind kids bring up years later, right alongside the sandcastles.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Biggest Screen on the Strand, Minutes From Your Beach Chair

A giant laser-lit screen in December, a fully renovated theater by spring, and the whole Grand Strand in between — it’s one more reason a North Myrtle Beach vacation keeps getting better in every season. Thomas Beach Vacations can put you close to all of it, with oceanfront home rentals roomy enough for a whole movie-loving crew and oceanfront condos perfect for a couples’ getaway built around a premiere night — all across North Myrtle Beach’s four beach sections, each an easy drive from The Market Common.

Sources: MyHorryNews reporting (July 28, 2026) on the Georgia Theatre Company’s IMAX and renovation plans, including confirmation from GTC President Bo Chambliss; The Market Common district renovation timeline update. Renovation dates and details are subject to permitting and construction schedules. Related reading: Things to Do in Myrtle Beach · Myrtle Beach Events · Fall Vacation in North Myrtle Beach