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Is 3D Already Dying?

Black Rose

By Black Rose
in How We See The World

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Black Rose

Black Rose

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Earlier today I reported on the unlikelihood that the next Batman movie will be in 3D. But is that a fluke or part of a trend? If box office numbers are any indication, it's definitely the latter.

 

Since the high-water mark of Avatar, where 71% of the revenue came from 3D screenings, numbers for big-budget 3D movies have plummeted to less than 50%.

 

340x_3dboxoffice.jpg

 

Obviously Avatar was a unique case in that it was basically sold as a 3D "experience," so if you saw it in 2D you were missing out. But then three months later the animated How to Train Your Dragon pulled in 68% of its revenue from 3D screens, hardly a significant drop-off.

 

Fast forward a mere four months and you have Despicable Me, another 3D animated kids movie, pulling in 45% of its revenue from 3D screens. As you can see by The Wrap's chart below, it's a pretty clear trend.

 

Is 3D Already Dying?What's this mean? It means that now that people have had a chance to experience 3D in theaters, they're opting to spend $10 on a 2D screening rather than $15 on a 3D screening when given the option.

 

It's not great news for Hollywood studios that have sunk boatloads of money into 3D cameras and tech, but it's much, much worse news for consumer electronics companies such as Sony and Panasonic who are betting the farm on people wanting to upgrade two-year-old HDTVs to 3D HDTVs. But if Hollywood finds that making 3D movies isn't as profitable as they thought, they'll stop doing it. And without that content, no one will have any reason to buy a 3D TV.

 

Sucks for them, but it's good news for consumers who are voting with their wallets. No more inflated ticket prices and no need to buy a new TV for a feature no one ever really wanted? Sounds good to me. [The Wrap via Ebert]

 

http://gizmodo.com/5592956/is-3d-already-dying

 

Thank god!

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ToCatchFire

ToCatchFire

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Maybe it's just the animated cartoony movies that people don't want to pay more for. I mean, Up was okay in 3D but after I felt like I should have just paid for the 2D showing. If it's a movie from Pixar or something you're not going to miss out on anything if you watch it in 2D. If it's like a big actiony movie with special effects and all that crap then people will want to see it in 3D.

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Darlene_Ihnfsa

Darlene_Ihnfsa

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I don't know why all movies need to be in 3D now.

yes, and so many screens in general, it'll only get the glasses selling raise up more than ever before.

 

i feel dizzy with the 3D thing :bigcry:

-thought i had no problem with IMAX and that's 3D aswell, isn't it? :confused:

 

thankfully that 3D era will be over soon, i'm sick of movies and other stuff done that way, is just blurry.

 

but nothing new, i remember when i was a kid there was another era of it -not for movies-, although none remember the bugs bunny movie with that basket player, it was in 3D already right?

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Space Cadet

Space Cadet

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Avatar was filmed in 3D and was designed to use the 3D to bring you into that world. There was skill and purpose in the way the 3D was composed, and it worked. It really did feel like being on an alien planet looking at all the amazing scenery around you. The first 3D movie I ever saw about 10 years ago was like that- it was an IMAX movie about the ocean and it was AMAZING in 3D because like Avatar, it was immersive. The fish were swimming all around you as if you were underwater with them.

 

And then there was Coraline, which was wonderful in 3D. The stop motion puppets are 3D in real life so filming it in 3D made sense. The director of that movie made intelligent artistic choices about the sets and their interaction with the 3D to add meaning to the movie. The lenses would be closer together or farther apart than actual eyes so that the rooms would be flat and drab or huge and colourful depending on whether it was the real world or the fantasy world. When that tunnel opened up for the first time the 3D made it feel like the whole movie was opening up. There was intentional composition going on with the 3D.

 

Computer animation in 3D sort of makes sense because the models do exist in 3D within the computer. But it will always be a static 3D that the computer spits out and which doesn't add anything to the story or composition of the movie. Once you've seen one of those in 3D the novelty wears off. We're now getting to that point.

 

But the biggest reason 3D is dying is the glut of poorly converted 2D to 3D movies that hit the theatres after Avatar. The studios saw a cash cow and they hopped on board as fast as they possibly could. Killed the goose that laid the golden egg, even. They took a gently ramping up trend and turned it into a bubble. Bubbles pop. They thought of it mechanically rather than artistically, they flooded the market with sub-par product in both plot and visuals, and then they're whining now that it's failing. Well they got what they had coming. How many people saw Clash of the Titans in 3D and vowed never to watch a 3D movie again, I wonder?

 

The sad part is genuine 3D still has so much untapped artistic potential when used right, and the cynical conversions are destroying the opportunity for that. If the studios think it's cheaper to film in 2D and convert it to 3D rather than filming in 3D, how is that artistic potential going to be realized? If the audience doesn't think there's a difference between Clash of the Titans and the next Coraline, who's going to watch it? 3D didn't have to be a bubble or a fad. It could have lasted a long time if it had been used carefully and sparingly, and only when the movie called for it.

 

Sad. And typical. Here's hoping that theatres don't get rid of their shiny new 3D projectors out of spite, so that if and when a better plotted Avatar-ish movie comes along and shows genuine artistic merit, the tech will still be there.

 

:disappointed:

 

 

eta: Also, wow that rant turned out really long. Maybe it should go on my blog. :tongue:

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Black Rose

Black Rose

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I don't know why all movies need to be in 3D now.

 

Movie studios like 3D because:

1 - They can charge more for tickets, do you think that extra couple dollars goes to the cinema itself?

2 - It's 'harder' for someone to record the film with a camera

 

Smaller cinemas are getting rid of 2-D screenings when a 3D screening is available, after they found out that if they did both the 2D screenings had more people in (because they were cheaper) so scraped the 2D in order to force people to see the film in 3D or look elsewhere.

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Darlene_Ihnfsa

Darlene_Ihnfsa

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NOO! I don't want to see Casablanca in 3D! :bigcry:

me too, and i hope that trend be over soon, i'd like to know how many people will get visually damaged due to it.

 

shame that as Dargarius says, more cinemas are getting this system in order to get more money.

 

but you can't never know, when DVD came out off course only new movies came out in that format until now when even old movies are being re-released in that format.

 

Hands up who wants to see The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast re-released in 3d!? :cheesy:

 

 

 

 

:blank: for serious.

i don't want.

as cobby said, they were produced as animation there's no point in making them 3D.

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