Archive for the '3D' Category

Filed under: Action & Adventure, Animation, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Tech Stuff, Exhibition, Dreamworks, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Comic/Superhero/Geek

The New York Times is reporting this week on a new wave of 3-D movies that Hollywood thinks will forever change the future of cinema. Christopher and Scott brought you stories about the 3-D “Tintin” trilogy that Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are planning. A U2 concert film called U2 3D premiered footage at Cannes this weekend (I love U2, but I find that thing where Bono shoves his face into the camera obnoxious without 3-D technology). And James Cameron, who made the 2003 3-D IMAX documentary Ghosts of the Abyss, is shooting the highly-anticipated Avatar in 3-D using both computer animation and motion-capture technology. Avatar’s producer, Jon Landau says: “This is a different experience; it’s much more voyeuristic. The screen has always been an emotional barrier for audiences. Good 3-D makes the screen go away. It disappears, and you’re looking at a window into a world.”

3-D technology was fairly big in the 1950’s, but aside from a few sad attempts to revive it (Jaws 3-D, anyone?), it never really hit the mainstream. Recent movies like Monster House, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, and Spy Kids 3-D have attempted to make that happen, and we’re about to see a whole lot more. Robert Zemeckis’ upcoming adaptation of Beowulf will be screened in 3-D wherever possible. Trouble is, it’s not possible in that many places. Digital projection is only in roughly 2,300 of the 37,000 theaters in America, and 3-D projection is only in 700. Theater owners have been hesitant to install the projectors, because it is unclear whether moviegoers will pay extra to see a 3-D film. Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of DreamWorks Animation, thinks that they will, saying “I believe that this is the single greatest opportunity for the moviegoing experience since the advent of color. It has been more than 60 years since there has been a significant enhancement or innovation to the moviegoing experience.” Katzenberg predicts that starting in 2009, “a significant percentage of the big mainstream films will be made and exhibited in this format.”

Continue reading Times Article Says Hollywood Believes 3-D Is the Future

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Filed under: Action & Adventure, Animation, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, 20th Century Fox, Family Films, Dreamworks, Comic/Superhero/Geek

The 2007 summer movie season hasn’t even begun yet, but we’re already receiving news about release date competition for 2009. Yes, 2009. It wasn’t enough that we saw such premature territorial battling over Memorial Day, 2008 (Indiana Jones and the Fourth Installment vs. Speed Racer); the studios had to go and start the claim for that kick-off holiday of a whole two years away. There is something more significantly different about this battle, though. Both of the movies scheduled for release on Memorial day in 2009 will only be exhibited in the new 3-D format. 20th Century Fox has James Cameron’s Avatar duking it out against Dreamworks Animation’s Monsters vs. Aliens, which is being planned as that studio’s first release to play exclusively in 3-D.

The reason that this is such a noteworthy conflict is that in 2009 there may not be enough 3-D-equipped screens to handle simultaneous 3-D releases. The expected amount of screens that will be able to accommodate a 3-D movie at that time is 5,000 (currently there are only 700 screens able to do so), which doesn’t even meet the demands of Dreamworks’ Jeffrey Katzenberg, who claims he needs 6,000 screens for Monsters. And since Cameron’s film is now being said to have a budget close to $200 million, it is assumed that Fox will have a similar demand for its own title. Obviously one of the films will need to move, and it will likely be Monsters. With Avatar being Cameron’s first film since Titanic, it is certainly the more eagerly awaited picture and is therefore the most powerful. Expect an announcement sometime in the next year that states that Monsters will relocate to June.

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Filed under: Animation, New Releases, Disney, Sony, Box Office, Exhibition, Family Films

Always be wary of overblown announcements from Hollywood. Disney is announcing a great achievement in the opening weekend of its latest animated flick, Meet the Robinsons, but the studio is making a bigger deal out of its supposed success. The announcement pertains to the performance of 3-D showings of Robinsons versus the more available 2-D version of the film. Yes, Robinsons now holds a record for having the greatest opening for a 3-D movie, with regards to the width of its rollout and to its box office gross, but there are a few details that aren’t being revealed in Disney’s promotion of this news.

First of all, the wider rollout is due to more screens being equipped with Real D’s 3-D exhibition technology — Robinsons in 3-D opened on 521 screens (3413 with 2-D screens included) compared to Monster House in 3-D on 178 screens (3553 with 2-D screens included). Second of all, Robinsons technically did worse business than Monster House in 3-D theaters if you consider each film’s per-screen average. Robinsons made $7.3 million off its 3-D showings, which makes its per-screen take only $12,220. Monster House, on the other hand, made only $2.3 million from its 3-D screens, making its per-screen take $15,000. Overall, with 3-D and 2-D screens tallied, Robinsons grossed better in its opening weekend than Monster House ($25.1 mill. vs. $22.2 mill.), and Robinsons‘ percentage grossed from 3-D was higher than Monster House’s (13% vs. 11%), but otherwise it seems that people may have been a tad more curious about the new 3-D format last summer than today.

Continue reading ‘Robinsons’ 3-D Hardly Compares With ‘Monster House’ 3-D

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An updated, larger, and wider version of the iZ3D Three-Dimensional gaming monitor we reviewed in September is being launched at CES. Along with an improved look—they went black from silver—there are slightly less nerdy-looking glasses as well. The new specs look like goggles from that weird undersea part in Star Wars Episode I. We'll check these out at CES and let you know if there've been any significant improvements, and whether they still give me a headache.

Incidentally, we figured out it was because there's something wrong with my eyes or brain—we forget which—that caused me not to see 3D in the monitor. – Jason Chen

3D Monitor Review [Gizmodo]