Look at it through the 3-D glasses Jeffrey Katzenberg’s wearing, and the future of the movies is so bright, so dimensionally amazing, you really do have to wear those shades.
More than any other Hollywood power broker, the co-founder of Dream- Works SKG believes in digital 3-D filmmaking and what it can do for the moviegoing experience. It is “the third revolution,” he says. The first was sound. The second was color (though many silent features offered color-tinted processes). Digital 3-D completes the trifecta.
“Have we gone back to movies in black and white? No. Have we gone back to making silent films? No. Why would we go back to making 2-D images when we can make 3-D? It’s more natural to our sight.
“I can’t imagine going back,” he says.
The next major 3-D wave already has begun to break on the shores of a watchful film industry. In recent years, from “Spy Kids 3-D” onward, a trickle of 3-D features has succeeded in the marketplace, playing both in conventional 2-D theatrical format and on a smaller, gradually growing number of digital 3-D screens.
Some of these pictures melded live-action and motion-capture animation, such as director Robert Zemeckis’ “Beowulf.” Some were purely animated: Disney’s “Meet the Robinsons.” But everything DreamWorks Animation has coming down the pike, starting next year, will be in digital 3-D. The same goes for Disney/Pixar, which plans to rerelease the first two “Toy Story” smashes in 3-D before the 2010 release of “Toy Story 3,” in full-on, ground-up 3-D. Meanwhile, Disney’s “Bolt,” is due Nov. 26 in both formats.
One particularly profitable low-budget item early this year caught the attention of theater owners who were dragging their feet about outfitting their multiplexes for digital 3-D. It was a $7 million 3-D concert film, “Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour,” and it took in $65 million domestically. The film played only in theaters equipped with digital 3-D screens.
Film studios and filmmakers are frustrated. Roughly 1,300 screens nationwide have been equipped for digital 3-D. That’s not enough to open a big 3-D movie without padding out the theater list with a lot of conventional 2-D screens.
“The digital 3-D conversion has not rolled out quite as quickly as I’d hoped for,” Katzenberg says.
For example: This Friday, director Eric Brevig’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth” remake opens. The film happens to be a lot of fun, and not only because it has a shot of Brendan Fraser goobing toothpaste spittle on your face! In 3-D!
Playing ‘flat’
Two years ago, Brevig says, “we were told there’d be [2,000 or 3,000] 3-D screens by now. But we’re somewhere between 1,200 and 1,400.” So Brevig and company removed the phrase “3-D” from their title, and the film, budgeted at a relatively efficient $50 million, will do what “Beowulf” and others have done. It’ll play “flat” in most theaters, digital 3-D in the rest. Brevig says the film tested nearly identically in both formats.
But “it’s so much more fun when you put on the glasses.”
Mention “3-D” to filmgoers of a certain age, and titles bubble up from the memory swamp. These films from the early 1950s cashed in on a gimmick (“Bwana Devil” got it going) designed to combat the pernicious competition of that upstart medium, television.
Hollywood went two ways in response to TV: wide, by way of processes such as CinemaScope and VistaVision, and deep, by way of 3-D. Wide was easier to project. The Eisenhower-era 3-D phase didn’t last long. The process was faulty. Two projectors running in precise synchronization: difficult. Some moviegoers complained of headaches and eyestrain. And the cardboard 3-D glasses kept popping off your face (the current plastic, Buddy Holly models work a lot better).
The fad faded and disappeared. But it kept coming back, like “Jaws 3-D” in 1983. Or “Captain Eo” (1986), the 17-minute Disney themepark attraction starring Michael Jackson.
“Journey to the Center of the Earth” director Brevig worked on “Captain Eo’s” optical effects. A generation later, he says, everything has changed. He shot “Journey” with the Fusion System high-definition digital 3-D cameras developed by James “Titanic” Cameron and cinematographer Vince Pace. The cameras were mounted side by side, simulating the viewers’ left and right eyes. Far lighter and more mobile than traditional 3-D camera equipment, these machines enabled a more nimble visual approach.
“For the first time in motion picture history,” Brevig says–something about the topic of 3-D encourages its champions to use phrases like that–“you can show a 3-D movie, perfectly projected, at any theater. And the popcorn guy can turn on the projector.” ” One machine. No worries? Not exactly. Studios and exhibitors are working, frantically, to come to some sort of financial arrangement that will double and then triple the current number of digital 3-D screens, eventually arriving at a number able to accommodate an event picture such as James Cameron’s “Avatar,” scheduled for December 2009.
The runway is starting to stack up. In fact, says Ben Stassen, director of the forthcoming animated 3-D feature “Fly Me to the Moon” (opening Aug. 8), “next year is going to be a bloodbath.”
“Monsters vs. Aliens” is the big-budget animated DreamWorks 3-D gamble scheduled for late March 2009. The biggest gamble, “Avatar,” has zoomed past its $200 million budget. Cameron’s used to risking piles of money. He did a decade ago, with “Titanic.” Will his lucky streak extend to his 3-D experiment?
“Monsters vs. Aliens” and “Avatar,” according to Katzenberg, were “authored in 3-D rather than postproduced in 3-D,” and that makes all the difference. The new technology “completely changes the motion picture experience. It really is going to bring the audience into the movie, and immerse them in a way that is quite breathtaking.”
Coat-closet viewing
Many aspects of the culture today appear to bear out Katzenberg’s optimism. Think of people playing tennis or working out virtually on their Wii. Consider the impressive box office results along the IMAX theater chain, proving that large is popular, and counterbalancing consumers watching movies on tiny hand-held electronic devices.
But what about 3-D television? Aren’t we just a few blinks away from that brave new world? It’s already gaining a foothold in Japan.
Katzenberg is dismissive. Too much ambient light. Not enough of the “super highend immersive experience.” You’d have to set up the TV in a coat closet to get the proper lighting, he says.
He acknowledges that “in the last decade the level of innovation that has occurred in the home experience has radically enhanced the quality of that experience. The theater experience hasn’t gotten better. And some would argue, because of other things that have happened [BlackBerry texting, iPhone blabbing, etc.] it’s actually deteriorated. But then, for the first time in my 35 years in the movie business, along comes an innovation that allows the movie theaters to leap quantumly ahead of the home experience. And to me therein lies the greatest opportunity. This isn’t about preserving the movie business. It’s about reinventing it and making something completely new and fantastic.
“It’ll be a decade before the home experience can compete with it.”
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More movies on the way
“Journey to the Center of the Earth”
Jules Verne meets flying killer fish, going right for your face! (July 11)
“Fly Me to the Moon”
Animated tale of flies accompanying the Apollo 11 crew to the moon (Aug. 8)
“Bolt”
From Disney, animated feature about a TV-star dog whose off-set adventures lead to trouble (Nov. 26)
“My Bloody Valentine”
3-D remake of the Reagan-era horror item (Jan. 23)
“Coraline”
Creepy-funny animation in the spirit of “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (Feb. 6)
“Monsters vs. Aliens”
The title holds no secrets; DreamWorks is behind this high-profile animated feature. (March 27)
“Final Destination 4”
In the tradition of “Amityville 3-D” and “Jaws 3-D”! (Aug. 14, 2009)
“Horrorween”
Comedy-horror just in time for pumpkin season. (October 2009)
“A Christmas Carol”
Robert Zemeckis, the techno-wonk behind “Beowulf,” throws everything he can at the Dickens classic. (November 2009)
“Avatar”
One of the most expensive movies ever made, James Cameron’s sci-fi adventure may well take 3-D to the next level. (Dec. 18, 2009)
— Michael Phillips
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mjphillips@tribune.com
INSIDE: Michael Phillips’ list of iconic 3-D movies. PAGE 5
