Moviegoers will soon fully enter the third dimension in a technical revolution equal to the advent of sound and colour, says Hollywood power player Jeffrey Katzenberg.
The innovation begins in earnest next spring, but it comes with a price: about $5 more per ticket, or roughly 60 per cent more than the current North American average of $7 per ticket.
Katzenberg, the CEO of DreamWorks Animation and Hollywood's unofficial 3D evangelist, says the latest digital advances offer not just physical depth but "emotional dimensionality," and he predicts all movies and theatres will have it within the next five to eight years.
"There is that old cliché that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, a 3D picture is worth 3,000 words," Katzenberg said in an interview yesterday.
He was in Toronto with a half-hour demo reel of Monsters vs. Aliens, an animated sci-fi comedy that will be DreamWorks Animation's major showcase of 3D technology when it arrives next March.
The film uses a proprietary process called InTru 3D that boasts of offering a far better 3D experience than the unsteady twin-projector systems of decades past. A single digital projector does the job and the glasses required to see the 3D are easier on the eyes than the cardboard red-blue specs of yore.
The return of 3D has been touted for several years, with such films as Beowulf and Meet the Robinsons testing the market to varying results, and with some qualms from studios and exhibitors. But resistance is fast fading in all branches of the movie industry and many people believe 2009 will mark the tipping point where it really catches on.
There are currently 1,500 3D screens in North America, Katzenberg said, and that's expected to rise to 2,500 by the time Monsters vs. Aliens arrives.
By the summer of 2010, when DreamWorks Animation releases Shrek IV in 3D, there will be more than 7,500 screens capable of showing 3D. Even live-action dramas and comedies – Katzenberg used The Queen and Juno as examples – will be released in 3D.
The change won't come cheaply, though. Katzenberg is recommending exhibitors charge $5 more per 3D ticket: "Frankly, it's what we need to charge in order to justify the money being put into the movie theatres and the money that we're putting into making the movies."
Won't moviegoers balk at paying a 60 per cent increase?
"Not if what they see is great."
Even at that price, and even during a time of economic slowdown, a movie ticket is still one of the cheapest forms of entertainment available, he argued.
A major side benefit is that 3D films will cut down on piracy, because they'll be so hard to steal.
He further predicted that people would buy their own designer 3D glasses that they'll carry to theatres with them. Katzenberg has already talked to the upscale Italian eyeglass maker Luxottica about introducing combo 3D/sunglasses by the middle of 2009.
"You're going to the beach in the summertime, what do you do? You take a pair of sunglasses, you take a bathing suit, you take sunscreen. We're used to having things to help us do things. So you'll have a thing to go to the movies."
Watch TV on PC - 12,000 TV Channels and Movies
No comments:
Post a Comment