If it's 3-D, will they come?

Interesting article in today’s Wall Street Journal. Starting with Monsters vs. Aliens next weekend, there will be a wave of big-budget 3-D films hitting movie screens around the country over the next few years. Part of an effort to get folks to come to the movies. According to the paper, “Even with an upswing in the past few months, movie admissions have declined more than 9% over the past decade and were down by almost 5% last year, according to box-office tracker Media By the Numbers."

The new 3-D is more sophisticated than what folks my age witnessed back in the 1950s. Back then there were 2 projectors that had to be synchronized for the duration of the film; get ‘em a little out of whack and it wasn’t a matter of just the 3-D images falling flat, the audience would also get headaches. Many often did, even when the projectors ran right. The new 3-D system uses a single digital projector that rapidly alternates scenes as viewed by the left and right eyes. Still have to wear classes to see the 3-D image, but now the spec are more stylish than the old cardboard frames with red and green celophane "lenses." Looks more like sunshades. Sounds sorta like what they have at Disneyland and Disney World—wonder what percent of the shades they get back after each showing?

Also, is this going to work in today’s economy? First, the theater owners have to pony up $75,000 for each projector. Each time 3-D has been cranked up in the 1950s and in the 1970s-1980s, it has proven to be more of a fad and hasn’t caught on. Of the 43,000 movie screens in North America, only 2,000 are equipped for 3-D. Producers expect to make 45 3-D films over the next 2 ½-3 years. Will theater owners be willing to take a risk and make such large investments? And are 45 films enough to sustain audience interest?

Also, theaters typically raise 3-D tickets by $2-4 above normal admission. DreamWorks is looking at a $5 premium on its ticket sales. One investment bank estimates higher ticket sales from 3-D films could help boost box office by nearly 23% in 2011 over 2008 returns. Another possible drawback—3-D is aimed at putting butts in the seats of movie theaters. What’s going to happen to non-3-D DVD releases of those films? Subsequent DVD sales have been one of the more profitable arms of the industry in recent years. There’s talk of 3-D home systems, but that’s more expense and gets back to people staying at home rather than coming to the movies.

One thing that gives me pause is that most if not all of the 3-D films mentioned in the article are animated. I’d like to see more live-action. Moreover, in what to me was one of the more interesting factoids of the article, it quotes film critic Leonard Maltin as saying all the high hopes for 3-D now being voiced by studio heads “are an absolute replica of the pronouncements and interviews that came out in 1953.” Could it be 3-D will fade and fall again as it did 56 years ago?

What do you think? Ready to pay an extra $10 for you and your date to watch a 3-D cartoon?

I'd read that they had a number of films in production that'll be released in 3-D for 2010/11 but that was about all I'd read. I think this will stand or fall on whether they can excite/hype/con enough 11-20 year olds into thinking animation and horror films are better in 3-D. They failed in the 50's and again in the 70's/80's, but the technology they're using now, almost, renders either of those examples useless as predicters as to whether it'll be the same story this time around. Looking at the costs you mentioned though, unless the takings make the decision to get the equipment a no brainer, I think that the uptake may well be very slow and, that lack of availability, may well be the deciding factor in all this.

My whole view on this topic is pretty simple. Sure, some revenue will come in from the 3-D experience (mainly opening weekend) but what keeps em coming back is the quality of the film. Good entertaining films will always do well in the box office, regardless of 3-D or not.

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The problem back in the 1950s when I experenced 3-D is that many of the films were not of outstanding quality and relied primarily on the 3-D gimmick. The best of the bunch probably was the House of Wax thriller with Vincent Price. Still, seeing Price's mutulated mug didn't carry the shock of Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera because one could still recognize Price beneath the make-up. For me and I'm sure for many others, the most memorable scene in House of Wax remains a short clip of a guy batting a paddle-ball toward the 3-D cameras--looked like the ball was coming right at us in the audience, but did nothing to advance the story itself. The 3-D version of Creature from the Black Lagoon got a squeal from the audience from an underwater scene of the creature swimming right at us, but the movie was also circulated in the regular 2-D format and whatever fame it has achieved is more the result of the series of films about the creature and less from its 3-D format, which never seemed to evolve above the thrill of the audience having to duck seemingly-flying objects. You can recognize former 3-D films in old TV reruns by the number of objects shot, thrown or dropped toward the camera--for instance, the many arrows shot by the warring Indians in The Charge at Feather River. Other than that, 3-D seemed to contribute very little to the plot of a film. There is one scene I remember in which the cable of a cable car suspended high over a mountain gorge breaks, and the car appears to fall into the audience's laps. But I can't remember anything else about that movie, not even it's title. My impression is that it came at the end of the 3-D craze, when the thrill was pretty much gone.

In the 1980s-1990s, I was impressed with the better quality of 3-D in short films at Disneyland and especially Disney World. But of course the primary aim is things leaping out from the movie screen to make the audience duck. I discovered one draw-back to 3-D in the process: while watching Disney's Honey, I Shrunk the Audience with a pre-teen grandson, the scene where the kid's escaped pet snake seems to strike at the audience not only made him jump but also caused him to take off his 3-D glasses and not watch the rest of the show. Now this is a kid who I didn't think you could scare if you threatened him with a chain-saw. But we never were able to talk him into putting on those 3-D glasses even for the more benovolent films like the Muppets and A Bug's Life. So 3-D is going to scare some kids, which will dull the enjoyment and popularity of some 3-D family films.

Now, Disney does have some other techniques that does enhance the overall 3-D effect. In Honey, I Shrunk the Audience when a seemingly giant dog looks into the camera and sneezes, some device on the seat-back in front of you simultaneously sprays a fine mist in your face. And in the A Bug's Life, the stink-bugs hovering in front of you really do stink. Moreover, I once saw at Epcot Center a technology Disney was working on that in essence put an movie control in each viewer's hand so that each could make his individual 3-D image (shown in the headgear viewing apparatus worn by each of four individual viewers, not on a screen) of Aladdin's flying carpet climb or dive to his own instructions. Now if Disney can put this all together in a combination so that each individual in the audience has some control over a 3-D image in each scene, so that the viewer decides if the image turns right or left, goes forward or back, jumps or ducks or takes other action, and can feel the mist of rain or the ocean breeze and smells the perfume factor or open sewer that the 3-D image passes, then that's gonna be a major breakthrough for entertainment! I'd pay an extra $10 for an experience like that.

Quality-wise, the best 3D movies of the 1950s were Dial M For Murder and Hondo. If you watch the DVD of Dial M For Murder today, it just about looks 3D. I watched Hondo on TV in 3D in 1991. A film restorer had a deal in Southern California where you could get 3D glasses from the local 7-11s and watch Hondo, so I had a group of family and friends over to watch Hondo, and it was the first time any of us had ever seen it since it had some legal hassle about it playing on TV for years.

Apparently, this year's Coraline is the apex of modern 3D presentation, but Monsters vs. Aliens comes out next week, so we (some of us) shall see.

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You're right, Mark--Hondo was out of circulation for so long I had forgotten it ever played in 3-D. Actually, in most places it didn't, having been released in both 2-D and 3-D. But Hondo is a good Western with a storyline that can stand on its own feet with out high-tech enhancement. Geraldine Page was the standout in that movie, one of the rare times in a Wayne Western that his romantic interest was near his own age and had the look of a real pioneer woman.

I'm not sure I was ever aware Dial M for Murder was done in 3-D. If I did know, I'd long since forgotten it. Thinking of it now, it's hard to remember any scene that would really benefit from the in-your-face 1950s approach to 3-D. Even in the stabbing scene, she's stabbing in, toward his back, not out toward the audience. Dial M was even better prepared to stand on its own feet as a first-rate film even more than Hondo.

Couldn't agree more. The whole gimmick of 3-D, if used appropriately, should make the film that more enjoyable. Simply releasing a movie in 3-D to get some people to watch a flick with corny glasses, not the best way to make money.

Put a 3-D film next to a regular film that have both proven to be very profitable and I doubt you'll see much fluxuation in ticket sales.

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This thread title reminds me of a really X rated hologram of "Old Man River" that I once saw...

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I the remake Night Of The Living Dead 3D both the film and the 3D were pretty horrible.

I haven't been blown away by any of them, but the one film that I can say that I'm really looking forward to is Cameron's Avatar.

I think this film will be the extending life, or death of the format. (Non animated that is)

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Lawd, I can't even begin to imagine what a near-porno hologram must be like!! Don't even get into what shoots out of the mist-device!

You'd at least hope that the "big finish" wasn't facing the camera.

Latest update on 3-D from an Associated Press story posted today on Netscape quotes DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg as saying the spread of the new technology to international theaters has been slower than expected. However, he said the outlook for 3-D is good because it offers an improved visual experience. Katzenberg was in the Far East promoting DreamWorks' 3-D animated movie Monsters vs. Aliens. He said it costs roughly $100,000 to upgrade a traditional theater with new digital projectors and 3-D equipment. He acknowledged, "It's harder to get financing right now," because of the global recession.
He said there are some 2,000 3-D-capable theaters in the US and another 1,500 in other countries, including 200 in mainland China, several hundred in the UK, and 100 in France. He expects those numbers to multiply in 1-2 years because the new 3-D technology is so good. Monsters vs. Aliens opens Friday in the US and is being released worldwide in both 2-D and 3-D formats, with 15-20% of theaters releasing the movie in 3-D (that percentage sounds high to me).
Katzenberg said it costs $150 million to make a typical DreamWorks animated film; doing it in 3-D costs an extra $15 million.

Another problem with 3-D is mentioned in your post rufnek. With 15-20% of theatres capable of showing films in 3-D, why is there such a push for them at this present time?

Clearly, the better money-maker is the traditional theatres showing the film in 2-D. Most parents are looking for cheap entertainment for their kids and I don't know too many that would shell out the extra bucks just for some shock and awe.

I think they dropped the Magenta/Cyan Anaglyphic stuff in the late 70s/early 80s. I saw Friday the 13th Part 3 in 3d when I was 11 or 12, and the glasses were clear, polarized 3d glasses, and the 3d was STELLAR for the time.

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As far as prices go, Disneyland is currently $59 for a nine-year-old and $69 for a 10-year-old, and you're lucky if you can get on 5-10 rides in a day. Monsters Vs. Aliens is 94 minutes long (much longer than those 5-10 rides last), and the kid's matinee prices around here for 2-D range from $6.50-$7.75. The kids 3-D prices for the same time are $11.75. It seems "cheap" compared to going to a theme park.

You raise a good point, but in these times, if my kid were old enough to want one or the other, I wouldn't hesitate at all to say 2-D is good enough. Plus, here in Omaha, there's only one theatre (that I know of) that is 3-D capable and it's on the north side of the city.

I think it's because there's a good number of 3-D films slated for release over the next 2-3 years. If the uptake is good, then it's another way of boosting the overall box office takings, which are down and have been slipping, year on year, for at least 5 years now.

Also, with dvd making up so much of a films, overall, profit now, I think that they're looking for another way of getting people back into the cinemas, especially for repeated viewing, instead of waiting for the dvd.

I'll agree with you on that aspect, honeykid. Yes, if uptake is good, the box office takings WILL increase.

However, until the economy is flipped back on track, I would imagine that most people see renting a DVD via Redbox, Netflix, On Demand, etc., much cheaper than going and watching a movie in a theatre. Then there are those who go to the theatre for the atmosphere. I'll admit, I'm not the avid movie watcher I once was. I find myself waiting for DVD on a lot of films these days more so than I used to. I will go see a movie in the theatre if I feel that it meets that standard.

When I lived in Oklahoma City, there was a theatre that boasted two huge auditoriums with balcony seating. The price to sit up there on a Friday/Saturday night was upwards of around $20 a person. Matinee's were maybe $5 cheaper. What was the draw to the balcony? Well, the balcony serves alcohol and you have to be 21 in order to sit up there. I guess sitting up there and pampering yourself once in a while is no big deal. It's not like a 3-D film comes out every weekend, so if you want to spend a little extra cash to experience a movie a different way...why not.

But will 3-D stick around for a little while then fizzle out again? I'll go back to my previous post...is the ticket price worth whatever shock and awe you might receive? Granted, I've never seen a 3-D movie so I don't know what the hoopla is all about.

Maybe I'll go this weekend...

I haven't seen a digital 3D film either , I'd like to see one. I obviously can't comment without having seen one yet - but I think if the technology at work really is amazing , it will capture the larger audience.

I would probably see lots of cheeseball run of the mill animated movies if the 3D was in fact really well done - then again Pixar's Up is going to be 3D so I'm in luck.

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I saw BOLT in 3-D, the technology is good. But I still stand by the fact that the movie has to actually be good and the 3-D gimmik by itself doesnt work.