Re: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE?
If this continues, maybe they will have more screens doing 3-D than flat. Here in Connecticut, the Manchester Rave theatres are showing Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in flat, Disney Digital 3D and Imax 3D. I work in retail and we do sell a large number of 3D ready TV sets. So maybe people are staying home to watch the same movie in 3D? From: Kirby McDaniel ki...@movieart.net To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Sent: Monday, May 30, 2011 10:16 AM Subject: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE? Will History Repeat Itself? from today's NY Times Kirby McDaniel www.movieart.net May 29, 2011 3-D Starts to Fizzle, and Hollywood Frets By BROOKS BARNES and MICHAEL CIEPLY LOS ANGELES — Has the 3-D boom already gone bust? It’s starting to look that way — at least for American moviegoers — even as Hollywood prepares to release a glut of the gimmicky pictures. Ripples of fear spread across Hollywood last week after “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” which cost Walt Disney Studios an estimated $400 million to make and market, did poor 3-D business in North America. While event movies have typically done 60 percent of their business in 3-D, “Stranger Tides” sold just 47 percent in 3-D. “The American consumer is rejecting 3-D,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the financial services company BTIG, wrote of the “Stranger Tides” results. One movie does not make a trend, but the Memorial Day weekend did not give studio chiefs much comfort in the 3-D department. “Kung Fu Panda 2,” a Paramount Pictures release of a DreamWorks Animation film, sold $53.8 million in tickets from Thursday to Sunday, a soft total, and 3-D was 45 percent of the business, according to Paramount. Consumer rebellion over high 3-D ticket prices plays a role, and the novelty of putting on the funny glasses is wearing off, analysts say. But there is also a deeper problem: 3-D has provided an enormous boost to the strongest films, including “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland,” but has actually undercut middling movies that are trying to milk the format for extra dollars. “Audiences are very smart,” said Greg Foster, the president of Imax Filmed Entertainment. “When they smell something aspiring to be more than it is, they catch on very quickly.” Muddying the picture is a contrast between the performance of 3-D movies in North America and overseas. If results are troubling domestically, they are the exact opposite internationally, where the genre is a far newer phenomenon. Indeed, 3-D screenings powered “Stranger Tides” to about $256 million on its first weekend abroad; Disney trumpeted the figure as the biggest international debut of all time. With results like that at a time when movies make 70 percent of their total box office income outside North America, do tastes at home even matter? After a disappointing first half of the year, Hollywood is counting on a parade of 3-D films to dig itself out of a hole. From May to September, the typical summer season, studios will unleash 16 movies in the format, more than double the number last year. Among the most anticipated releases are “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” due from Paramount on July 1, and Part 2 of Part 7 of the “Harry Potter” series, arriving two weeks later from Warner Brothers. The need is urgent. The box-office performance in the first six months of 2011 was soft — revenue fell about 9 percent compared with last year, while attendance was down 10 percent — and that comes amid decay in home-entertainment sales. In all formats, including paid streaming and DVDs, home entertainment revenue fell almost 10 percent, according to the Digital Entertainment Group. The first part of the year held a near collapse in video store rentals, which fell 36 percent to about $440 million, offsetting gains from cut-price rental kiosks and subscriptions. In addition, the sale of packaged discs fell about 20 percent, to about $2.2 billion, while video-on-demand, though growing, delivered total sales of less than a quarter of that amount. At the box office, animated films, which have recently been Hollywood’s most reliable genre, have fallen into a deep trough, as the category’s top three performers combined — “Rio,” from Fox; “Rango,” from Paramount; and “Hop,” from Universal — have had fewer ticket buyers than did “Shrek the Third,” from DreamWorks Animation, after its release in mid-May four years ago. “Kung Fu Panda 2” appears poised to become the biggest animated hit of the year so far; but it would have to stretch well past its own predecessor to beat “Shrek Forever After,” another May release, which took in $238.7 million last year. For the weekend, “The Hangover: Part II” sold $118 million from Thursday to Sunday, easily enough for No. 1. “Kung Fu Panda 2” was second. Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” was third with $39.3 million for a new total of $152.9
Re: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE?
Roland, you mentioned 3D tv's. Our TV recently died and I found a nice Samsung to repalce it. One of the options the Samsung came with was 3D. It came with two pair of glasses which oddly needed charging. While I could have cared less about this option, I must say with those glasses, on the Samsung TV we have seen some incredible 3D effects. I think the TV is much better then the theater experience for 3D. It is actually wonderful. It came as a wonderful surprise how good it is. JIm On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 8:10 AM, Roland Lataille roland.latai...@sbcglobal.net wrote: If this continues, maybe they will have more screens doing 3-D than flat. Here in Connecticut, the Manchester Rave theatres are showing Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in flat, Disney Digital 3D and Imax 3D. I work in retail and we do sell a large number of 3D ready TV sets. So maybe people are staying home to watch the same movie in 3D? -- *From:* Kirby McDaniel ki...@movieart.net *To:* MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU *Sent:* Monday, May 30, 2011 10:16 AM *Subject:* [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE? Will History Repeat Itself? from today's NY Times Kirby McDaniel www.movieart.net May 29, 2011 3-D Starts to Fizzle, and Hollywood Frets By BROOKS BARNES and MICHAEL CIEPLY LOS ANGELES — Has the 3-D boom already gone bust? It’s starting to look that way — at least for American moviegoers — even as Hollywood prepares to release a glut of the gimmicky pictures. Ripples of fear spread across Hollywood last week after “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” which cost Walt Disney Studios an estimated $400 million to make and market, did poor 3-D business in North America. While event movies have typically done 60 percent of their business in 3-D, “Stranger Tides” sold just 47 percent in 3-D. “The American consumer is rejecting 3-D,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the financial services company BTIG, wrote of the “Stranger Tides” results. One movie does not make a trend, but the Memorial Day weekend did not give studio chiefs much comfort in the 3-D department. “Kung Fu Panda 2,” a Paramount Pictures release of a DreamWorks Animation film, sold $53.8 million in tickets from Thursday to Sunday, a soft total, and 3-D was 45 percent of the business, according to Paramount. Consumer rebellion over high 3-D ticket prices plays a role, and the novelty of putting on the funny glasses is wearing off, analysts say. But there is also a deeper problem: 3-D has provided an enormous boost to the strongest films, including “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland,” but has actually undercut middling movies that are trying to milk the format for extra dollars. “Audiences are very smart,” said Greg Foster, the president of Imax Filmed Entertainment. “When they smell something aspiring to be more than it is, they catch on very quickly.” Muddying the picture is a contrast between the performance of 3-D movies in North America and overseas. If results are troubling domestically, they are the exact opposite internationally, where the genre is a far newer phenomenon. Indeed, 3-D screenings powered “Stranger Tides” to about $256 million on its first weekend abroad; Disney trumpeted the figure as the biggest international debut of all time. With results like that at a time when movies make 70 percent of their total box office income outside North America, do tastes at home even matter? After a disappointing first half of the year, Hollywood is counting on a parade of 3-D films to dig itself out of a hole. From May to September, the typical summer season, studios will unleash 16 movies in the format, more than double the number last year. Among the most anticipated releases are “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” due from Paramount on July 1, and Part 2 of Part 7 of the “Harry Potter” series, arriving two weeks later from Warner Brothers. The need is urgent. The box-office performance in the first six months of 2011 was soft — revenue fell about 9 percent compared with last year, while attendance was down 10 percent — and that comes amid decay in home-entertainment sales. In all formats, including paid streaming and DVDs, home entertainment revenue fell almost 10 percent, according to the Digital Entertainment Group. The first part of the year held a near collapse in video store rentals, which fell 36 percent to about $440 million, offsetting gains from cut-price rental kiosks and subscriptions. In addition, the sale of packaged discs fell about 20 percent, to about $2.2 billion, while video-on-demand, though growing, delivered total sales of less than a quarter of that amount. At the box office, animated films, which have recently been Hollywood’s most reliable genre, have fallen into a deep trough, as the category’s top three performers combined — “Rio,” from Fox; “Rango,” from Paramount; and “Hop,” from Universal — have had fewer
Re: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE?
James Cameron showed up unannounced at a recent exhibitor's conference to demonstrate a new 3D system he is working on that ups the visual standards for 3D enormously. Of course, he's planning on making a film using this standard. But it requires exhibitors to do an upgrade, something they generally hate. He has licensed, as I understand it, Peter Jackson to film THE HOBBIT in an somewhat modified version of this new system. The improvements involve the frame rate. I think that Cameron's system involved a frame rate at 100 fps. The problem is that it is more expensive to make pictures in 3D. Audiences are showing that they don't want to pay the extra $$ to see just any film in 3D. It has to be special. TV may end up being the 3D medium as programing such as is found on DISCOVERY and the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC channel is appropriate for the medium. One hour programming is not so long to be wearing the glasses also. However, the broadcast system does not adjust to things like a frame-rate change readily, so any upgrade to 3D won't come automatically. Kirby McDaniel www.movieart.net On May 31, 2011, at 8:18 AM, James Gresham wrote: Roland, you mentioned 3D tv's. Our TV recently died and I found a nice Samsung to repalce it. One of the options the Samsung came with was 3D. It came with two pair of glasses which oddly needed charging. While I could have cared less about this option, I must say with those glasses, on the Samsung TV we have seen some incredible 3D effects. I think the TV is much better then the theater experience for 3D. It is actually wonderful. It came as a wonderful surprise how good it is. JIm On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 8:10 AM, Roland Lataille roland.latai...@sbcglobal.net wrote: If this continues, maybe they will have more screens doing 3-D than flat. Here in Connecticut, the Manchester Rave theatres are showing Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in flat, Disney Digital 3D and Imax 3D. I work in retail and we do sell a large number of 3D ready TV sets. So maybe people are staying home to watch the same movie in 3D? From: Kirby McDaniel ki...@movieart.net To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Sent: Monday, May 30, 2011 10:16 AM Subject: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE? Will History Repeat Itself? from today's NY Times Kirby McDaniel www.movieart.net May 29, 2011 3-D Starts to Fizzle, and Hollywood Frets By BROOKS BARNES and MICHAEL CIEPLY LOS ANGELES — Has the 3-D boom already gone bust? It’s starting to look that way — at least for American moviegoers — even as Hollywood prepares to release a glut of the gimmicky pictures. Ripples of fear spread across Hollywood last week after “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” which cost Walt Disney Studios an estimated $400 million to make and market, did poor 3-D business in North America. While event movies have typically done 60 percent of their business in 3-D, “Stranger Tides” sold just 47 percent in 3-D. “The American consumer is rejecting 3-D,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the financial services company BTIG, wrote of the “Stranger Tides” results. One movie does not make a trend, but the Memorial Day weekend did not give studio chiefs much comfort in the 3-D department. “Kung Fu Panda 2,” a Paramount Pictures release of a DreamWorks Animation film, sold $53.8 million in tickets from Thursday to Sunday, a soft total, and 3-D was 45 percent of the business, according to Paramount. Consumer rebellion over high 3-D ticket prices plays a role, and the novelty of putting on the funny glasses is wearing off, analysts say. But there is also a deeper problem: 3-D has provided an enormous boost to the strongest films, including “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland,” but has actually undercut middling movies that are trying to milk the format for extra dollars. “Audiences are very smart,” said Greg Foster, the president of Imax Filmed Entertainment. “When they smell something aspiring to be more than it is, they catch on very quickly.” Muddying the picture is a contrast between the performance of 3-D movies in North America and overseas. If results are troubling domestically, they are the exact opposite internationally, where the genre is a far newer phenomenon. Indeed, 3-D screenings powered “Stranger Tides” to about $256 million on its first weekend abroad; Disney trumpeted the figure as the biggest international debut of all time. With results like that at a time when movies make 70 percent of their total box office income outside North America, do tastes at home even matter? After a disappointing first half of the year, Hollywood is counting on a parade of 3-D films to dig itself out of a hole. From May to September, the typical summer season, studios will unleash 16 movies in the format, more than double the number last year. Among the most anticipated releases are “Transformers
Re: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE?
It came with two pair of glasses which oddly needed charging That's because Samsung among others uses Active 3D and a few other brands use Passive 3D. At the moment active-shutter glasses are more expensive, and often hard to use for prolonged periods of time, but give a better 3D image. You can read more here: http://www.pcworld.com/article/225218/active_3d_vs_passive_3d.html http://www.3dtvtechnology.org.uk/passive-versus-active Ron - Original Message - From: James Gresham To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 3:18 PM Subject: Re: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE? Roland, you mentioned 3D tv's. Our TV recently died and I found a nice Samsung to repalce it. One of the options the Samsung came with was 3D. It came with two pair of glasses which oddly needed charging. While I could have cared less about this option, I must say with those glasses, on the Samsung TV we have seen some incredible 3D effects. I think the TV is much better then the theater experience for 3D. It is actually wonderful. It came as a wonderful surprise how good it is. JIm On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 8:10 AM, Roland Lataille roland.latai...@sbcglobal.net wrote: If this continues, maybe they will have more screens doing 3-D than flat. Here in Connecticut, the Manchester Rave theatres are showing Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in flat, Disney Digital 3D and Imax 3D. I work in retail and we do sell a large number of 3D ready TV sets. So maybe people are staying home to watch the same movie in 3D? From: Kirby McDaniel ki...@movieart.net To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Sent: Monday, May 30, 2011 10:16 AM Subject: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE? Will History Repeat Itself? from today's NY Times Kirby McDaniel www.movieart.net May 29, 2011 3-D Starts to Fizzle, and Hollywood Frets By BROOKS BARNES and MICHAEL CIEPLY LOS ANGELES — Has the 3-D boom already gone bust? It’s starting to look that way — at least for American moviegoers — even as Hollywood prepares to release a glut of the gimmicky pictures. Ripples of fear spread across Hollywood last week after “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” which cost Walt Disney Studios an estimated $400 million to make and market, did poor 3-D business in North America. While event movies have typically done 60 percent of their business in 3-D, “Stranger Tides” sold just 47 percent in 3-D. “The American consumer is rejecting 3-D,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the financial services company BTIG, wrote of the “Stranger Tides” results. One movie does not make a trend, but the Memorial Day weekend did not give studio chiefs much comfort in the 3-D department. “Kung Fu Panda 2,” a Paramount Pictures release of a DreamWorks Animation film, sold $53.8 million in tickets from Thursday to Sunday, a soft total, and 3-D was 45 percent of the business, according to Paramount. Consumer rebellion over high 3-D ticket prices plays a role, and the novelty of putting on the funny glasses is wearing off, analysts say. But there is also a deeper problem: 3-D has provided an enormous boost to the strongest films, including “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland,” but has actually undercut middling movies that are trying to milk the format for extra dollars. “Audiences are very smart,” said Greg Foster, the president of Imax Filmed Entertainment. “When they smell something aspiring to be more than it is, they catch on very quickly.” Muddying the picture is a contrast between the performance of 3-D movies in North America and overseas. If results are troubling domestically, they are the exact opposite internationally, where the genre is a far newer phenomenon. Indeed, 3-D screenings powered “Stranger Tides” to about $256 million on its first weekend abroad; Disney trumpeted the figure as the biggest international debut of all time. With results like that at a time when movies make 70 percent of their total box office income outside North America, do tastes at home even matter? After a disappointing first half of the year, Hollywood is counting on a parade of 3-D films to dig itself out of a hole. From May to September, the typical summer season, studios will unleash 16 movies in the format, more than double the number last year. Among the most anticipated releases are “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” due from Paramount on July 1, and Part 2 of Part 7 of the “Harry Potter” series, arriving two weeks later from Warner Brothers. The need is urgent. The box-office performance in the first six months of 2011 was soft — revenue fell about 9 percent compared with last year, while attendance was down 10 percent — and that comes amid decay in home-entertainment sales. In all formats, including paid streaming and DVDs
Re: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE?
Yes, the TV's that are 3D ready are usually the TV's with the best picture and features. We don't sell them to push 3D. We think they have the best picture. 3D is just another added feature. I bought a Sony 55 inch 3D ready model KDL55NX810 months ago. It has the best picture I have ever seen on a TV. I did not buy the 3-D glasses. Its a good thing I didn't as they were over $100 at that time and now I could get the new 2011 rechargeable for $29. From: James Gresham jamesalangres...@gmail.com To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 9:18 AM Subject: Re: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE? Roland, you mentioned 3D tv's. Our TV recently died and I found a nice Samsung to repalce it. One of the options the Samsung came with was 3D. It came with two pair of glasses which oddly needed charging. While I could have cared less about this option, I must say with those glasses, on the Samsung TV we have seen some incredible 3D effects. I think the TV is much better then the theater experience for 3D. It is actually wonderful. It came as a wonderful surprise how good it is. JIm On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 8:10 AM, Roland Lataille roland.latai...@sbcglobal.net wrote: If this continues, maybe they will have more screens doing 3-D than flat. Here in Connecticut, the Manchester Rave theatres are showing Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in flat, Disney Digital 3D and Imax 3D. I work in retail and we do sell a large number of 3D ready TV sets. So maybe people are staying home to watch the same movie in 3D? From: Kirby McDaniel ki...@movieart.net To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Sent: Monday, May 30, 2011 10:16 AM Subject: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE? Will History Repeat Itself? from today's NY Times Kirby McDaniel www.movieart.net May 29, 2011 3-D Starts to Fizzle, and Hollywood Frets By BROOKS BARNES and MICHAEL CIEPLY LOS ANGELES — Has the 3-D boom already gone bust? It’s starting to look that way — at least for American moviegoers — even as Hollywood prepares to release a glut of the gimmicky pictures. Ripples of fear spread across Hollywood last week after “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” which cost Walt Disney Studios an estimated $400 million to make and market, did poor 3-D business in North America. While event movies have typically done 60 percent of their business in 3-D, “Stranger Tides” sold just 47 percent in 3-D. “The American consumer is rejecting 3-D,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the financial services company BTIG, wrote of the “Stranger Tides” results. One movie does not make a trend, but the Memorial Day weekend did not give studio chiefs much comfort in the 3-D department. “Kung Fu Panda 2,” a Paramount Pictures release of a DreamWorks Animation film, sold $53.8 million in tickets from Thursday to Sunday, a soft total, and 3-D was 45 percent of the business, according to Paramount. Consumer rebellion over high 3-D ticket prices plays a role, and the novelty of putting on the funny glasses is wearing off, analysts say. But there is also a deeper problem: 3-D has provided an enormous boost to the strongest films, including “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland,” but has actually undercut middling movies that are trying to milk the format for extra dollars. “Audiences are very smart,” said Greg Foster, the president of Imax Filmed Entertainment. “When they smell something aspiring to be more than it is, they catch on very quickly.” Muddying the picture is a contrast between the performance of 3-D movies in North America and overseas. If results are troubling domestically, they are the exact opposite internationally, where the genre is a far newer phenomenon. Indeed, 3-D screenings powered “Stranger Tides” to about $256 million on its first weekend abroad; Disney trumpeted the figure as the biggest international debut of all time. With results like that at a time when movies make 70 percent of their total box office income outside North America, do tastes at home even matter? After a disappointing first half of the year, Hollywood is counting on a parade of 3-D films to dig itself out of a hole. From May to September, the typical summer season, studios will unleash 16 movies in the format, more than double the number last year. Among the most anticipated releases are “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” due from Paramount on July 1, and Part 2 of Part 7 of the “Harry Potter” series, arriving two weeks later from Warner Brothers. The need is urgent. The box-office performance in the first six months of 2011 was soft — revenue fell about 9 percent compared with last year, while attendance was down 10 percent — and that comes amid decay in home-entertainment sales. In all formats, including paid streaming and DVDs, home entertainment revenue fell almost 10 percent, according to the Digital
Re: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE?
With the active glasses you are getting 1080 per eye, with passive 540. Families with a large number of young children tend to buy the passive 3D TV's. All customers like the 3D image on the active 3D TV's better than the passive in my experience showing the TV's to them. If you get closer than six feet to the passive 3D TV, there is a lot of crosstalk (double images) - not a problem on the active 3D TV. From: MotionPictureArt.com i...@motionpictureart.com To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 10:44 AM Subject: Re: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE? It came with two pair of glasses which oddly needed charging That's because Samsung among others uses Active 3D and a few other brands use Passive 3D. At the moment active-shutter glasses are more expensive, and often hard to use for prolonged periods of time, but give a better 3D image. You can read more here: http://www.pcworld.com/article/225218/active_3d_vs_passive_3d.html http://www.3dtvtechnology.org.uk/passive-versus-active Ron - Original Message - From: James Gresham To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 3:18 PM Subject: Re: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE? Roland, you mentioned 3D tv's. Our TV recently died and I found a nice Samsung to repalce it. One of the options the Samsung came with was 3D. It came with two pair of glasses which oddly needed charging. While I could have cared less about this option, I must say with those glasses, on the Samsung TV we have seen some incredible 3D effects. I think the TV is much better then the theater experience for 3D. It is actually wonderful. It came as a wonderful surprise how good it is. JIm On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 8:10 AM, Roland Lataille roland.latai...@sbcglobal.net wrote: If this continues, maybe they will have more screens doing 3-D than flat. Here in Connecticut, the Manchester Rave theatres are showing Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in flat, Disney Digital 3D and Imax 3D. I work in retail and we do sell a large number of 3D ready TV sets. So maybe people are staying home to watch the same movie in 3D? From: Kirby McDaniel ki...@movieart.net To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Sent: Monday, May 30, 2011 10:16 AM Subject: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE? Will History Repeat Itself? from today's NY Times Kirby McDaniel www.movieart.net May 29, 2011 3-D Starts to Fizzle, and Hollywood Frets By BROOKS BARNES and MICHAEL CIEPLY LOS ANGELES — Has the 3-D boom already gone bust? It’s starting to look that way — at least for American moviegoers — even as Hollywood prepares to release a glut of the gimmicky pictures. Ripples of fear spread across Hollywood last week after “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” which cost Walt Disney Studios an estimated $400 million to make and market, did poor 3-D business in North America. While event movies have typically done 60 percent of their business in 3-D, “Stranger Tides” sold just 47 percent in 3-D. “The American consumer is rejecting 3-D,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the financial services company BTIG, wrote of the “Stranger Tides” results. One movie does not make a trend, but the Memorial Day weekend did not give studio chiefs much comfort in the 3-D department. “Kung Fu Panda 2,” a Paramount Pictures release of a DreamWorks Animation film, sold $53.8 million in tickets from Thursday to Sunday, a soft total, and 3-D was 45 percent of the business, according to Paramount. Consumer rebellion over high 3-D ticket prices plays a role, and the novelty of putting on the funny glasses is wearing off, analysts say. But there is also a deeper problem: 3-D has provided an enormous boost to the strongest films, including “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland,” but has actually undercut middling movies that are trying to milk the format for extra dollars. “Audiences are very smart,” said Greg Foster, the president of Imax Filmed Entertainment. “When they smell something aspiring to be more than it is, they catch on very quickly.” Muddying the picture is a contrast between the performance of 3-D movies in North America and overseas. If results are troubling domestically, they are the exact opposite internationally, where the genre is a far newer phenomenon. Indeed, 3-D screenings powered “Stranger Tides” to about $256 million on its first weekend abroad; Disney trumpeted the figure as the biggest international debut of all time. With results like that at a time when movies make 70 percent of their total box office income outside North America, do tastes at home even matter? After a disappointing first half of the year, Hollywood is counting on a parade of 3-D films to dig
Re: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE?
Not a fan of 3D...just don't care. Perhaps an occasional special production of some sort would interest me, but other than that I just don't find value in it, personally. Regards DBT Sent via mobile device -Original Message- From: Kirby McDaniel ki...@movieart.net Sender: MoPo List mopo-l@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 08:55:30 To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Reply-To: Kirby McDaniel ki...@movieart.net Subject: Re: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE? James Cameron showed up unannounced at a recent exhibitor's conference to demonstrate a new 3D system he is working on that ups the visual standards for 3D enormously. Of course, he's planning on making a film using this standard. But it requires exhibitors to do an upgrade, something they generally hate. He has licensed, as I understand it, Peter Jackson to film THE HOBBIT in an somewhat modified version of this new system. The improvements involve the frame rate. I think that Cameron's system involved a frame rate at 100 fps. The problem is that it is more expensive to make pictures in 3D. Audiences are showing that they don't want to pay the extra $$ to see just any film in 3D. It has to be special. TV may end up being the 3D medium as programing such as is found on DISCOVERY and the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC channel is appropriate for the medium. One hour programming is not so long to be wearing the glasses also. However, the broadcast system does not adjust to things like a frame-rate change readily, so any upgrade to 3D won't come automatically. Kirby McDaniel www.movieart.net On May 31, 2011, at 8:18 AM, James Gresham wrote: Roland, you mentioned 3D tv's. Our TV recently died and I found a nice Samsung to repalce it. One of the options the Samsung came with was 3D. It came with two pair of glasses which oddly needed charging. While I could have cared less about this option, I must say with those glasses, on the Samsung TV we have seen some incredible 3D effects. I think the TV is much better then the theater experience for 3D. It is actually wonderful. It came as a wonderful surprise how good it is. JIm On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 8:10 AM, Roland Lataille roland.latai...@sbcglobal.net wrote: If this continues, maybe they will have more screens doing 3-D than flat. Here in Connecticut, the Manchester Rave theatres are showing Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in flat, Disney Digital 3D and Imax 3D. I work in retail and we do sell a large number of 3D ready TV sets. So maybe people are staying home to watch the same movie in 3D? From: Kirby McDaniel ki...@movieart.net To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Sent: Monday, May 30, 2011 10:16 AM Subject: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE? Will History Repeat Itself? from today's NY Times Kirby McDaniel www.movieart.net May 29, 2011 3-D Starts to Fizzle, and Hollywood Frets By BROOKS BARNES and MICHAEL CIEPLY LOS ANGELES — Has the 3-D boom already gone bust? It’s starting to look that way — at least for American moviegoers — even as Hollywood prepares to release a glut of the gimmicky pictures. Ripples of fear spread across Hollywood last week after “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” which cost Walt Disney Studios an estimated $400 million to make and market, did poor 3-D business in North America. While event movies have typically done 60 percent of their business in 3-D, “Stranger Tides” sold just 47 percent in 3-D. “The American consumer is rejecting 3-D,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the financial services company BTIG, wrote of the “Stranger Tides” results. One movie does not make a trend, but the Memorial Day weekend did not give studio chiefs much comfort in the 3-D department. “Kung Fu Panda 2,” a Paramount Pictures release of a DreamWorks Animation film, sold $53.8 million in tickets from Thursday to Sunday, a soft total, and 3-D was 45 percent of the business, according to Paramount. Consumer rebellion over high 3-D ticket prices plays a role, and the novelty of putting on the funny glasses is wearing off, analysts say. But there is also a deeper problem: 3-D has provided an enormous boost to the strongest films, including “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland,” but has actually undercut middling movies that are trying to milk the format for extra dollars. “Audiences are very smart,” said Greg Foster, the president of Imax Filmed Entertainment. “When they smell something aspiring to be more than it is, they catch on very quickly.” Muddying the picture is a contrast between the performance of 3-D movies in North America and overseas. If results are troubling domestically, they are the exact opposite internationally, where the genre is a far newer phenomenon. Indeed, 3-D screenings powered “Stranger Tides” to about $256 million on its first weekend abroad; Disney trumpeted the figure as the biggest
Re: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE?
Dear Mopes - When you talk 3D - I gotta chime in. I always loved 3D - it was a bit of an obsession with me. I collected all the 3D stuff there was - comics, cards, movie posters - then I fell in with the wrong crowd and got to write and produce a couple 3D movies - Parasite (bad, but not so bad) and Metalstorm (bad to the bone!). Charlie Band walked into the production office a couple weeks before we were scheduled to begin shooting Parasite and said the film had been picked up by Irwin Yablans and that we were going to make it in 3D - I took the script home and wrote INTO CAMERA on ever shot - that was my 3D script revision! You wouldn't believe how much fun it was and how blurry-eyed I got watching a couple hours of 3D rushes every night after the day's filming. Those were the good old days. (Even had Concrete Jungle - my homage to women's prison films that I always loved - being shot at the same time back in LA while I was in Piru with a truly stunning 18-year-old Demi Moore and a sweet, but very chewed-up Cherie Curry). I was also very proud of myself when the first Parasite 3D posters rolled off the presses with my name on it. I suppose my love of 3D came full circle to me when I could collect my own 3D posters. It was the ultimate rush for an eye-candy paperholic like myself. A side note of something I learned watching so much 3D footage at one time was that the eye adjusts to the process - at least it adjusted to the old crappy 3D process I worked with - and after about 15 minutes you had to make the stuff jump out at you more and more for the effects to work. Ever wonder why the beginning of a 3D movie is always so much more visually exciting than the rest of the film? That's why. It was always the gimmick and exploitation of 3D that I loved - the faux approximation of reality. And total immersion - the loss of self - into the reality of a fantasy world - is what the movies have always been about. Audiences grow weary of gimmicks - and 3D will always be a gimmick until it works without glasses - Cameron (worked with him and Jon Landau on Titanic) knows that upping frame speed is a key to glasses-less 3D. It creates a sharper and more defined image. Douglas Trumbull was ahead of the curve in this respect with his Showscan process with very wide film shot and projected at very fast speeds - it burned an enormous amount of film but it looked very real. In the end, we will probably have implants and download from satellite whatever programs we want to watch and they will put us inside the action - the viewer will then become the ultimate 3D participant. DON'T SEE A MOVIE - BE A MOVIE! (Used to write poster copy lines too.) - Until then, we will still be selling tickets the old way with 3D - you can't see this at home - ballyhoo - but now the TV guys got smart and are doing the same thing. More eventual gimmickry burnout - but still great until the next gimmick comes along. At any rate 3D is fun - always loved it - always will - I just hope I live to see the day when we can plug the input in the side of our head and be in the movie together! Now that might make a remake of Concrete Jungle worth attending. Alan Adler Museum of Mom and Pop Culture On May 31, 2011, at 10:08 AM, douglasbtay...@hotmail.com wrote: Not a fan of 3D...just don't care. Perhaps an occasional special production of some sort would interest me, but other than that I just don't find value in it, personally. Regards DBT Sent via mobile device From: Kirby McDaniel ki...@movieart.net Sender: MoPo List mopo-l@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 08:55:30 -0500 To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU ReplyTo: Kirby McDaniel ki...@movieart.net Subject: Re: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE? James Cameron showed up unannounced at a recent exhibitor's conference to demonstrate a new 3D system he is working on that ups the visual standards for 3D enormously. Of course, he's planning on making a film using this standard. But it requires exhibitors to do an upgrade, something they generally hate. He has licensed, as I understand it, Peter Jackson to film THE HOBBIT in an somewhat modified version of this new system. The improvements involve the frame rate. I think that Cameron's system involved a frame rate at 100 fps. The problem is that it is more expensive to make pictures in 3D. Audiences are showing that they don't want to pay the extra $$ to see just any film in 3D. It has to be special. TV may end up being the 3D medium as programing such as is found on DISCOVERY and the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC channel is appropriate for the medium. One hour programming is not so long to be wearing the glasses also. However, the broadcast system does not adjust to things like a frame-rate change readily, so any upgrade to 3D won't come automatically. Kirby McDaniel www.movieart.net On May 31, 2011, at 8:18
Re: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE?
So you want to be in Huxley's world* where The Feelies ruled! K. * BRAVE NEW WORLD On May 31, 2011, at 12:45 PM, Alan Adler wrote: Dear Mopes - When you talk 3D - I gotta chime in. I always loved 3D - it was a bit of an obsession with me. I collected all the 3D stuff there was - comics, cards, movie posters - then I fell in with the wrong crowd and got to write and produce a couple 3D movies - Parasite (bad, but not so bad) and Metalstorm (bad to the bone!). Charlie Band walked into the production office a couple weeks before we were scheduled to begin shooting Parasite and said the film had been picked up by Irwin Yablans and that we were going to make it in 3D - I took the script home and wrote INTO CAMERA on ever shot - that was my 3D script revision! You wouldn't believe how much fun it was and how blurry-eyed I got watching a couple hours of 3D rushes every night after the day's filming. Those were the good old days. (Even had Concrete Jungle - my homage to women's prison films that I always loved - being shot at the same time back in LA while I was in Piru with a truly stunning 18-year-old Demi Moore and a sweet, but very chewed-up Cherie Curry). I was also very proud of myself when the first Parasite 3D posters rolled off the presses with my name on it. I suppose my love of 3D came full circle to me when I could collect my own 3D posters. It was the ultimate rush for an eye-candy paperholic like myself. A side note of something I learned watching so much 3D footage at one time was that the eye adjusts to the process - at least it adjusted to the old crappy 3D process I worked with - and after about 15 minutes you had to make the stuff jump out at you more and more for the effects to work. Ever wonder why the beginning of a 3D movie is always so much more visually exciting than the rest of the film? That's why. It was always the gimmick and exploitation of 3D that I loved - the faux approximation of reality. And total immersion - the loss of self - into the reality of a fantasy world - is what the movies have always been about. Audiences grow weary of gimmicks - and 3D will always be a gimmick until it works without glasses - Cameron (worked with him and Jon Landau on Titanic) knows that upping frame speed is a key to glasses-less 3D. It creates a sharper and more defined image. Douglas Trumbull was ahead of the curve in this respect with his Showscan process with very wide film shot and projected at very fast speeds - it burned an enormous amount of film but it looked very real. In the end, we will probably have implants and download from satellite whatever programs we want to watch and they will put us inside the action - the viewer will then become the ultimate 3D participant. DON'T SEE A MOVIE - BE A MOVIE! (Used to write poster copy lines too.) - Until then, we will still be selling tickets the old way with 3D - you can't see this at home - ballyhoo - but now the TV guys got smart and are doing the same thing. More eventual gimmickry burnout - but still great until the next gimmick comes along. At any rate 3D is fun - always loved it - always will - I just hope I live to see the day when we can plug the input in the side of our head and be in the movie together! Now that might make a remake of Concrete Jungle worth attending. Alan Adler Museum of Mom and Pop Culture On May 31, 2011, at 10:08 AM, douglasbtay...@hotmail.com wrote: Not a fan of 3D...just don't care. Perhaps an occasional special production of some sort would interest me, but other than that I just don't find value in it, personally. Regards DBT Sent via mobile device From: Kirby McDaniel ki...@movieart.net Sender: MoPo List mopo-l@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 08:55:30 -0500 To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU ReplyTo: Kirby McDaniel ki...@movieart.net Subject: Re: [MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE? James Cameron showed up unannounced at a recent exhibitor's conference to demonstrate a new 3D system he is working on that ups the visual standards for 3D enormously. Of course, he's planning on making a film using this standard. But it requires exhibitors to do an upgrade, something they generally hate. He has licensed, as I understand it, Peter Jackson to film THE HOBBIT in an somewhat modified version of this new system. The improvements involve the frame rate. I think that Cameron's system involved a frame rate at 100 fps. The problem is that it is more expensive to make pictures in 3D. Audiences are showing that they don't want to pay the extra $$ to see just any film in 3D. It has to be special. TV may end up being the 3D medium as programing such as is found on DISCOVERY and the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC channel is appropriate for the medium. One hour programming is not so long to be wearing the glasses also. However
[MOPO] SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC: 3-D FIZZLE?
Will History Repeat Itself? from today's NY Times Kirby McDaniel www.movieart.net May 29, 2011 3-D Starts to Fizzle, and Hollywood Frets By BROOKS BARNES and MICHAEL CIEPLY LOS ANGELES — Has the 3-D boom already gone bust? It’s starting to look that way — at least for American moviegoers — even as Hollywood prepares to release a glut of the gimmicky pictures. Ripples of fear spread across Hollywood last week after “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” which cost Walt Disney Studios an estimated $400 million to make and market, did poor 3-D business in North America. While event movies have typically done 60 percent of their business in 3-D, “Stranger Tides” sold just 47 percent in 3-D. “The American consumer is rejecting 3-D,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the financial services company BTIG, wrote of the “Stranger Tides” results. One movie does not make a trend, but the Memorial Day weekend did not give studio chiefs much comfort in the 3-D department. “Kung Fu Panda 2,” a Paramount Pictures release of a DreamWorks Animation film, sold $53.8 million in tickets from Thursday to Sunday, a soft total, and 3-D was 45 percent of the business, according to Paramount. Consumer rebellion over high 3-D ticket prices plays a role, and the novelty of putting on the funny glasses is wearing off, analysts say. But there is also a deeper problem: 3-D has provided an enormous boost to the strongest films, including “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland,” but has actually undercut middling movies that are trying to milk the format for extra dollars. “Audiences are very smart,” said Greg Foster, the president of Imax Filmed Entertainment. “When they smell something aspiring to be more than it is, they catch on very quickly.” Muddying the picture is a contrast between the performance of 3-D movies in North America and overseas. If results are troubling domestically, they are the exact opposite internationally, where the genre is a far newer phenomenon. Indeed, 3-D screenings powered “Stranger Tides” to about $256 million on its first weekend abroad; Disney trumpeted the figure as the biggest international debut of all time. With results like that at a time when movies make 70 percent of their total box office income outside North America, do tastes at home even matter? After a disappointing first half of the year, Hollywood is counting on a parade of 3-D films to dig itself out of a hole. From May to September, the typical summer season, studios will unleash 16 movies in the format, more than double the number last year. Among the most anticipated releases are “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” due from Paramount on July 1, and Part 2 of Part 7 of the “Harry Potter” series, arriving two weeks later from Warner Brothers. The need is urgent. The box-office performance in the first six months of 2011 was soft — revenue fell about 9 percent compared with last year, while attendance was down 10 percent — and that comes amid decay in home-entertainment sales. In all formats, including paid streaming and DVDs, home entertainment revenue fell almost 10 percent, according to the Digital Entertainment Group. The first part of the year held a near collapse in video store rentals, which fell 36 percent to about $440 million, offsetting gains from cut-price rental kiosks and subscriptions. In addition, the sale of packaged discs fell about 20 percent, to about $2.2 billion, while video-on-demand, though growing, delivered total sales of less than a quarter of that amount. At the box office, animated films, which have recently been Hollywood’s most reliable genre, have fallen into a deep trough, as the category’s top three performers combined — “Rio,” from Fox; “Rango,” from Paramount; and “Hop,” from Universal — have had fewer ticket buyers than did “Shrek the Third,” from DreamWorks Animation, after its release in mid-May four years ago. “Kung Fu Panda 2” appears poised to become the biggest animated hit of the year so far; but it would have to stretch well past its own predecessor to beat “Shrek Forever After,” another May release, which took in $238.7 million last year. For the weekend, “The Hangover: Part II” sold $118 million from Thursday to Sunday, easily enough for No. 1. “Kung Fu Panda 2” was second. Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” was third with $39.3 million for a new total of $152.9 million. “Bridesmaids” (Universal Pictures) was fourth with $16.4 million for a new total of about $85 million. “Thor” (Marvel Studios) rounded out the top five with $9.4 million for a new total of $160 million. Studio chiefs acknowledge that the industry needs to sort out its 3-D strategy. Despite the soft results for “Kung Fu Panda 2,” animated releases have continued to perform well in the format, overcoming early problems with glasses that didn’t fit little faces. But general-audience movies like “Stranger Tides” may be better off the
