'Star Wars' a tribute to Kodak film

• Commercial film chief Andy Evenski says Kodak division should vault back into the black next year.
• "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" and other films boosting Kodak's film division.

As Eastman Kodak Co. worked its way through bankruptcy, many thought the iconic Rochester company would be forced to eventually shutter its film business.

Instead company officials believe the division will turn a profit in 2016 with commitments from several major Hollywood studios and filmmakers to use film manufactured in Rochester in their movies. Perhaps none is expected to gross more at the box office than the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

"We've had a lot of success with people coming back to film, mainly because (of) the aesthetics of it," said Andrew Evenski, president and general manager of Kodak's entertainment and commercial films division. "It's more natural looking."

He said J.J. Abrams shot the latest Star Wars — ironically one of the first franchises to move away from film — on 65mm film. Episode VIII in the Star Wars series also is expected to be shot on Kodak film as well.

"It is important for us," said Evenski, who attended the Star Wars premiere Monday night with Kodak CEO Jeff Clarke and his wife, Suzette, along with about 4,000 others. "It shows, especially with a movie like Star Wars, that film is very much alive and it’s a real choice for filmmakers. For us, it is a real tribute."

Motion picture film had long been big business for the Rochester-based Kodak. But digital technology began to slowly eat away at that business. George Lucas' Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was shot both on film and with high-definition digital cameras. And when it came out in 1999, it was the first widely released feature film to be shown digitally.

That marked the beginning of hard times for Kodak's film manufacturing business. In 2014, the company turned out roughly 450 million linear feet of film for producing and showing motion pictures, or roughly 1/28th of the motion picture film the company produced in 2006.

In its third quarter results, Kodak said revenues of its consumer and film division were $64 million, down from $92 million a year earlier. The company said at the time that the decline of nearly 30 percent was expected largely due to losses in its consumer inkjet printer cartridge business. However, its film division recorded a profit for the third quarter in a row, the company said.

Evenski added that the film business has been basically at a break-even point this year with such movies as James Bond: Spectre, The Hateful 8, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Jurassic World, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and several others as being shot on film as well as such television programs as The Walking Dead, The Middle and American Horror Story.

Roughly 700 people work in Kodak's film business, with a majority of them working in the Rochester area, Evenski said.

"There is a place for digital but there is a place for film," he said. "When you are trying to talk about a story that's emotional and you're having a lot of close-up shots of people's facial features, film really brings it through."

Evenski said he couldn't share much about The Force Awakens, adding that people at the premiere took cell phones away and made moviegoers sign an agreement not to share details of the film.

"It is a really good show of cinematography and art that really comes with a story line," he said. "It looks great. It's a great movie."

TCLAUSEN@Gannett.com