A new wave of 3D movies is coming to theaters.
Unfortunately, it’s not what the format needs.
The box-office flop "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore" (below) was the first of August's trio of new films in the format that's supposed to be revolutionizing theatergoing. Of the three, only one – the dance movie “Step Up 3D,” which opens Friday – will have been shot in 3D.
The other two were conversions, shot in 2D and then dimensionalized in post-production: “Cats & Dogs," which finished sixth at the box office with a take of only $12.3 million, and the horror flick “Piranha 3D,” an August 20 release.
And for the rest of 2010, the pickings appear paltry. Certainly, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1" will be a big ticket item, the reliable DreamWorks Animation will release "Megamind," and "Jackass 3D" might actually take the format in disgusting new directions.
But otherwise, it's a slate of horror movies, questionable animated films and sci-fi: "Resident Evil: Afterlife," "Alpha and Omega," "Legend of the Guardians," "Saw VII," "My Soul to Take," "Tangled," "Yogi Bear."
The upcoming films use a mixture of techniques: “Resident Evil,” “Saw” and “Jackass” were filmed in 3D; “Harry Potter” and “My Soul to Take” are conversions; and the others are animated, where a 3D effect can be produced simply by rendering another “eye” from the original computer files.
The inconsistency is not great news at a time when 3D market share is declining (see accompanying story, "The Rise and Fall of 3D") and the audience has shown dissatisfaction with the ticket surcharge and the quality of films, especialy like "Clash of the Titans" and “The Last Airbender.”
What 3D could use now is another showpiece like “Avatar” or “Toy Story 3.” Teen-oriented dancers, talking animals and killer fish probably aren’t going to do it, no matter how good they look.
“It’s going to take a movie that uses the medium in service of the story the way that Jim Cameron did to get people excited and feel that it’s worthwhile to pay that ticket price,” says Rob Hummel, the CEO of Prime Focus, a Los Angeles-based company whose services include 3D conversions.
“I think we need to be careful. If the audience is going to pay a premium, we’d better give them a premium experience.”
Hummel would not go so far as to say that premium experience has been missing from recent 3D releases, but others are not so diplomatic. The Los Angeles Times review of “Cats & Dogs” griped about how viewers were being forced to “pay a premium surcharge to receive absolutely nothing of value in return,” and suggested, “If there ever was a film to thumb your nose at the recent spate of 3D ticket-gouging, this is it.”
“The conversion process is to genuine 3D — the kind you see in ‘Toy Story 3′ or ‘How to Train Your Dragon’— what colorization is to color: a ghoulish simulation,” wrote Ty Burr in the
