It has been a roller-coaster year for 3D and the technology’s most fervent evangelist, Jeffrey Katzenberg, head of DreamWorks Animation. In the first few months of 2010, Avatar became the highest-grossing film of all time with $2.8 billion in ticket sales. It seemed that 3D had made a critical and business breakthrough into the mainstream.
But in April Clash of the Titans hit theatres. Audiences got a horrifying glimpse of what it can look like when a studio slaps a movie into 3D after it has been filmed. Characters looked like “bad, cardboard cutouts,” said one reviewer. A 3D backlash set in. Critics asserted the average $3.25 extra ticket price chases away moviegoers. Online publication Slate argued the ratio of per screen revenue for 3D versus 2D was shrinking dramatically. Roger Ebert wrote for Newsweek, “Why I Hate 3D (And You Should Too).” Doubly insulting were 3D movies like Cats & Dogs and Piranha–lousy and expensive to see, says analyst Richard Greenfield of BTIG research. When you do that, he adds, “you run the risk of alienating your core consumer base.”
All nonsense, responds Katzenberg, the 59-year-old DreamWorks chief executive. Putting on his rose-colored glasses, Katzenberg believes that within the next 20 years everything we look at, from billboards to movies to cellphone screens, will be in 3-D.
“There are naysayers out there,” he says. “There are people who are in 100% denial about this. But it’s over. Game over. Touchdown. 3D won.”
Katzenberg, of course, is extremely motivated to make that audacious prediction, hyperbolic or not. Every DreamWorks Animation movie is now in 3-D. His latest, Megamind, hits theatres Nov. 5. His company needs widespread acceptance of 3D to flourish.
Earnings have jumped from $15 million in 2006 to $151 million for 2009, while revenues rocketed from $395 million to $725 million. For the past six years DreamWorks has averaged one movie per year in the top ten by domestic box office. By the end of 2010 DreamWorks Animation has a good chance of landing three in the top ten. Shrek Forever After and How to Train Your Dragon are already ranked seventh and eighth, respectively.
The movie industry welcomes Katzenberg’s evangelizing because it badly needs those extra revenues. DVD sales have shrunk 19% since 2006. 3D is beginning to slowly make up for that loss, constituting nearly 20% of the $8 billion in box office revenues so far this year, up from 11% in 2009, according to Screen Digest. The production cost of a 3D movie is 10% to 20% higher than that of a regular film. But it could pay off. Jackass 3 (in 3D) earned 40% more in its opening weekend than Jackass 2.
Meanwhile whole markets are growing around 3D in the home. Eyewear companies like Oakley are rolling out lines of 3D glasses that will sell for as much as $150 a pair. Nintendo has a 3D handheld game system in the works. So far this year consumers have spent $1.2 billion on 3-D television and DVD players, but that growth will stall without more home 3D content.
Katzenberg has a long history in Hollywood. In the late ’80s he helped Michael Eisner turn Disney around as head of the company’s studio. He later started DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen and took the animation division public in 2004. (DreamWorks SKG is now its own ministudio with a distribution deal with Disney.)
That same year he had a revelation, after watching The Polar Express, that 3D would be the future of filmmaking. DreamWorks was struggling then, with only the Shrek franchise throwing off real money. 3D might offer a flood of new revenue.
“I was blown away by how visceral the experience was, how exhilarating it made me feel,” says Katzenberg, his signature Diet Coke nearby in his office at DreamWorks’ Glendale, Calif. campus. “This is an opportunity . . . to make our movies more engaging and interesting, more emotional and unique.”
But the technology wasn’t advanced enough. The Polar Express could be shown in 3D only on Imax screens. So Katzenberg started talking to anyone who would listen about the promise of mass-market 3D. That included filmmakers like James Cameron, theatre owners and technology experts.
“He’s a 3D ambassador like no other,” says Greg Foster, president of Imax. “He picks up the phone and calls theatres individually.”
Katzenberg brought studios and exhibitors together to craft a cost- sharing solution to pay for digital 3-D-enabled projectors. Today 15% of screens in the U.S. can show 3D movies, with 500 more added every month.
Katzenberg is mystified by the sharp knives that are being pointed–prematurely, in his view–at 3D. “We’re only two to three years into the adaptation of this technology,” he says. He concedes that some of the gripes are legitimate, particularly complaints that 3D glasses dim the image on the screen. But he says that the next generation of digital projectors, using lasers instead of lightbulbs, will mitigate that problem.
As for people like Ebert who complain about the look of 3D movies, well, Katzenberg feels there isn’t much he can do about that. “Okay, I get it. He aesthetically finds it intrusive to his movie-watching experience,” says Katzenberg. “He can see Megamind in 2-D.”
Other complaints he dismisses out of hand, especially anything to do with the price hike for 3D tickets. Katzenberg insists there’s been no price resistance from audiences and in fact believes that in a better economy theatre owners would be able to charge even more. Katzenberg points out that consumers can always see the movie in 2D. “We’re not saying if you don’t fly first class you can’t fly,” he says. “We have coach.”
Hollywood could shoot itself in the foot if it continues to release eyeball-challenging movies like Clash of the Titans. But the industry seems to be getting the message. Warner Bros., which released that movie, recently announced it’s abandoning its effort to convert the next Harry Potter movie into 3D, saying it couldn’t meet quality standards. Just what Katzenberg wanted to hear.
by Dorothy Pomerantz
original post:http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Entertainment/20101026/katzenberg-says-3d-here-to-stay-101031/
Yeah, Disney has toiled with this movie for years and years, and has state-of-the-art 3D technology that will likely rival what everyone to date has said is the best use of 3D movie tech to date, Avatar. So why would you go into the movie with the theater’s cheap disposable 3D glasses?