BC-US-FEA--Film-3-D Backlash Fears,0960
3-D entering new dimension as expectations rise
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NEW YORK (AP) -- With "Avatar" now out of theaters, the industrywide 3-D juggernaut is itself entering another dimension.
The immense box-office success of James Cameron's sci-fi epic proved the considerable draw of the 3-dimension effect, and subsequent 3-D releases benefited from the buzz.
The next wave of 3-D films, although still good bets for continued fortune, may not have it so easy.
Moviegoers, warming to technical terms like "convergence" and "stereospace," have become more cognizant of the difference between good and bad 3-D. Critics have weighed in on its shortcomings. And the general aura of novelty was never going to last forever.
"People are definitely starting to see the difference," said Jon Chu, director of "Step Up 3-D." "All these people putting Hollywood in check on why we're doing 3-D, why we're raising prices, I think it's a good thing for the art because it makes sure everyone is using 3-D for the right reasons."
The next 3-D release will be "Shrek Forever After" (May 21), the fourth installment of the animated franchise from DreamWorks. Six 3-D films will arrive this summer, including the animated films "Toy Story 3" (from Pixar) and Universal's "Despicable Me."
Despite the feeble history of 3-D, Hollywood has told us that this time is different, that 3-D will soon take its place alongside sound and color as technological advancements that have become the norm.
There are few signs to contradict that forecast, but the environment awaiting the coming 3-D films has changed.
Two of the top three post-"Avatar" 3-D releases -- "Alice in Wonderland" and, especially, "Clash of the Titans" -- were disparaged for their poor 3-D. Each was originally shot in 2-D and converted to 3-D in post-production.
The most influential film critic in the land, Roger Ebert, made his strongest denunciation yet of 3-D. In a recent Newsweek article, "Why I Hate 3-D (And You Should Too)," Ebert wrote: "Our minds use the principle of perspective to provide the third dimension. Adding one artificially can make the illusion less convincing."
Taken together, these events do not constitute a backlash, only the hints of one. After all, "Alice" earned $879 million worldwide at the box office and "Clash" took in $427 million.
Seemingly sensing a threat to 3-D's image, Cameron and Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, the most prominent 3-D evangelists, have chastised "Clash of the Titans" and hasty 2-D conversions publicly.
Katzenberg recently told Variety that Hollywood is at "a genuine crossroads" and that substandard conversions like that of Warner Bros.' "Titans" "snookered" audiences, jeopardizing 3-D's long-term growth.
More films like "Titans," Katzenberg said, will result in a backlash: "It will be a whiplash. They will walk away from this so fast."
If Hollywood executives normally admonished each other for bad movies, they would run out of breath. But Katzenberg has been especially vocal because he recognizes the current situation is fragile, and there is a lot riding on it.
Alexandre Aja, director of the coming horror flick "Piranha 3-D" from the Weinstein Co., says he and the studio made the decision to shoot in 2-D and later convert the film to give more flexibility while shooting. He maintains that conversion can work if enough time is taken in the painstaking process of rotoscoping, tracing each image to add dimension.
"`Clash' could have been a great conversion if they had more time," said Aja, breaking from the editing room and sounding somewhat haggard from his own "very long, long, long" process of conversion. He is currently two months in and expects to be working right up until the movie's August release.
Aja also said it is far better to know in advance that you will be converting to 3-D later: "During the shooting, we did a lot of things to get that process a little more technically accurate and to get ready for that final conversion."
Studios are remaking their entire production pipelines to benefit from the popularity and premium ticket prices of 3-D films generally about $3 more than regular tickets. Following dwindling DVD revenues and increased competition from home entertainment, Hollywood sees 3-D as the revolution it desperately needed to galvanize the theatrical experience.
The infrastructure still is not fully established. Theaters equipped for 3-D continue to be added, but 3-D televisions and DVD players are in their infancy. "Avatar" may be the biggest box-office success of all time ($2.7 billion worldwide), but for now, it is available only in 2-D on DVD.
Yet despite the inevitable growing pains, it does feel like 3-D ubiquity is coming. Few days go by without the announcement of some new 3-D endeavor, including recent offerings from such disparate media companies as ESPN, Nintendo and Playboy.
Whether the next crop of 3-D movies, from "Shrek" to "Tron Legacy," will continue to wow audiences will go a long way to determining whether the new 3-D is here to stay, or yet another three-dimensional fad.
At this year's Cannes Film Festival, Tim Burton (who directed "Alice in Wonderland" and is a festival juror) said expectations should be measured.
"People like to say, `Oh, this is the way.' To me, it's another tool. It's like using color or sound or whatever," said Burton. "I think too much is placed upon that as becoming the be-all and end-all; you know, saving the world and the economy. I think it's best to keep it as another tool that is sometimes fun and useful to deal with."
