Category Archives: Digital 3D

Box Office Review-Sunday 10 May

Posted by Carolyn Giardina | May 10, 2009 11:21 am

The Star Trek franchise had its biggest opening yet, as Paramount’s relaunched “Star Trek” topped the North American box office this weekend with an estimated $72.5 million, giving the film a domestic total of $76.5 million (with its Thursday opening night).

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine”—which last week had the biggest opening weekend of the year so far with an $85 million debut–finished in second place with an estimated $27 million, bringing its domestic box office total to $129.6 million. Worldwide, the film has crossed the $200 million mark.

Dreamworks Animation’s first digital 3D release “Monsters versus Aliens” stayed in the top 10 in its seventh week, bringing in an additional $3.4 million as its domestic total climbed to an estimated $186.9 million and worldwide gross reached $329.9 million. The production budget for “Monsters”—still the top grossing film of the year so far–is estimated to be around $175 million.

DWA still has a few more weeks before the next wide digital 3D release, Disney/Pixar’s “Up,” opens in theaters on May 29.

After a disappointing start last week, Lionsgate’s animated 3D release “Battle for Terra” continued to struggle. This weekend it brought in an estimated $184,000 for a $1. 5 million total domestic gross.

Add two more 3D release dates to your lists: Warner Bros.’ “Happy Feet 2”—the sequel to the computer animated Oscar winner “Happy Feet”—is slated to open in 3D on Nov. 18, 2011. Meanwhile Vivendi will open the live action family adventure “Call of the Wild 3D” next month on June 12.

Posted in Box Office, Digital 3D
Tagged as 3D, Battle for Terra, Box Office, Call of the Wild 3D, Dreamworks Animation, Happy Feet 2, Monsters vs. Aliens, Paramount, Star Trek, Twentieth Century Fox, Wolverine

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Digital Hollywood: Credit Market Starting to Recover

Posted by Carolyn Giardina | May 6, 2009 9:13 pm

A group of 3D industry leaders shared varying opinions on the future of 3D—as well as their latest impressions of the credit market–during a panel yesterday at the Digital Hollywood confab in Los Angeles.

“The market has recovered a little since December,” said James Dix, analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities. “The credit market is clearly loosening up, although DCIP happening imminently is not likely.”

Cinedigm chairman/CEO Bud Mayo reported: “Cinedigm has already financed $300 million in conversions of digital screens and we expect to start again this summer. The VPFs are a model that is proven and we have the data to support it. Getting our lenders to put up money for a proven model is not that much of a challenge. It is the macro economics that are the challenge.”

Kerner New York’s chairman/CEO Neal Weinstock surprised some while addressed production costs, suggesting that “we think we can get the production budget only about $25,000 higher for 3D than 2D, for episodic TV. Television will be the lion’s share of the 3D business.”

Lenny Lipton predicted that all content would eventually be 3D. “We are seeing the domino effect with 3D. Genre by genre it will become necessary to attract audiences. Animation was the first. It appears that horror will be next.”

Citing the success of 2D blockbuster “The Dark Knight,” Imax’s Greg Foster disagreed, saying “3D is providing a benefit, but I don’t think you have to throw all your eggs in one basket.”

Mayo also doesn’t believe that all movies need to be 3D, but he did promote alternative content. “The opportunity of digital have very little to do with movies–it’s to complement movies. How do you fix the seats that are empty? The opportunity comes with doing other things along with movies.”

As an example, he reported that Cinedigm would be offering concerts as alternative content during the summer.

Foster reported that Imax is up to 90 digital installations. He added that at Imax screenings, the first 15 minutes of upcoming summer release “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” would be presented in 3D.

Moderator Marty Shindler of consulting firm The Shindler Perspective offered a screen count update: Over 7,000 digital cinema screens worldwide, 3500 of which are 3D ready.

Posted in Alternative Content, Digital 3D, Digital Cinema
Tagged as Cinedigm, Digital 3D, IMAX, Kerner

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RealD Releases LP Version

Posted by Carolyn Giardina | May 5, 2009 6:03 pm

reald-projector RealD expanded its product line today with the launch of RealD LP (Linear Polarizing Z Screen), which the company describes as a mobile, single-projector, passive 3D system.

RealD recommends the system for conference rooms, R&D centers, museum exhibits, mobile education centers, virtual rides and other entertainment attractions.

According to the RealD announcement: The RealD LP is an externally mounted peripheral for a single 3D-enabled DLP projector, with electronic controls integrated inside the device. When 3D content is fed to the projector in full-resolution, frame-sequential format, the RealD LP allows content to be seen in 3D by polarizing right- and left-eye images. Viewers would require RealD eyewear custom built for the LP.

Supporting screens up to 17 feet wide, the RealD LP is designed to work with 3D-enabled projectors such as NEC NC800, Christie Mirage HD, and Lightspeed Design HD DepthQ, along with a silver screen from Harkness, MDI or Stewart.

The system is now available for lease through the company’s professional division.

Posted in Digital 3D, Technology
Tagged as 3D, Digital Projection, RealD

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“Wolverine” Opens With $87 Million Weekend; 3D Tested in “Battle”

Posted by Carolyn Giardina | May 3, 2009 11:44 am

North America’s summer movie season began this weekend with a big success for a superhero tentpole and a disappointing start for the latest 3D release.

20^th Century Fox’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” launched the season by winning its opening weekend with $87 million. That is the second biggest start for an X-Men franchise film. “X’Men: The Last Stand” opened in 2006 with $102.7 million, although that was released over the four-day Memorial Day holiday weekend.

In second place this weekend was Warner Bros.’ romantic comedy “Ghosts of Girfriends Past” with $15.3 million.

The success of “Wolverine” supports expectations that this summer will be one for the record books. Additional tentpoles expected to drive big box office revenues this summer include “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince,“ “Star Trek” and “Angels and Demons.”

Digital 3D will be a key area to watch this season. The summer of ’08 had only two 3D releases: “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” which topped $100 million; and “Fly Me to the Moon,” which brought in $13.6 million. A year ago there were also fewer screens.

This weekend, Lionsgate’s digital 3D title “Battle for Terra” made its debut, while Dreamworks Animation’s 3D “Monsters Versus Aliens” remained in theaters.

Computer-animated “Battle for Terra” opened in 1,162 2D and 3D theaters, but finished in 12^th place for the weekend with just over $1 million. In contrast, last summer’s animated “Fly Me To the Moon” opened with $1.9 million in just 452 theaters.

The 3D winner for the weekend was animated “Monsters Versus Aliens,” which in its sixth week collected another $5.8 million, bringing its domestic gross to $182.4 million. “Monsters” is the highest grossing movie of the year so far in North America.

A few 3D observations:

–Content is still king. Despite its strong buzz, digital 3D was not enough to drive big box office for “Battle for Terra.”

–Screen count: Estimates suggest that there are nearly 1,500 3D-ready theaters in North America. Yet still to come this summer is a steady slate of digital 3D titles including Disney/Pixar’s “Up” (May 29), Fox’s “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” (July 1), Disney’s “G-Force” (July 24), Disney’s “X-Games 3D The Movie” (Aug. 21) and Warners’ “Final Destination: Death Trip” (Aug. 28).

“Monsters” is still performing in its sixth week in release. Will the slate of 3D titles that will be sharing screens this summer prompt an increase in 3D theater installations?

Posted in Box Office, Digital 3D

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‘Monsters’ Continues to Influence Box Office

Posted by Carolyn Giardina | April 26, 2009 1:21 pm

Dreamworks Animation’s debut stereoscopic 3D title “Monsters Vs. Aliens” raked in another $8.5 million at the US box office this weekend, helping bring its domestic gross to $174.8 million and allowing its international box office to cross the $300 million mark. The film opened March 27 in the US and is the highest grossing film of 2009 to date, both in the domestic and worldwide box office.

A second 3D release, Focus’ “Coraline,” also sits in the US box office’s top 10 for the year so far. At number nine, the Henry Selick-directed stop-motion title has earned just shy of $75 million.

For other recent 3D releases: Lionsgate’s “My Bloody Valentine 3D” has taken in $51.5 million in the domestic market; and Disney’s 3D only release “Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience” earned $19.1 from roughly 1200 3-D screens.

In contrast to the Jonas release, Disney’s 3D “Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus Best of Both Worlds Concert” earned $65.5 million on only 650 screens in 2008. What factor or factors caused this difference? Was it the popularity of Miley Cyrus? Was it the fact that the “Hannah Montana” movie opened the day after the live concert tour wrapped, and was therefore considered more of an “event?”

–In this weekend’s US box office news, Screen Gems’ Beyonce Knowles starrer “Obsessed” led the pack, opening with $28.5 million.

But perhaps more notable is that “Earth”—the debut documentary from Disney’s new Disneynature banner—finished in the No. 5 slot with $8.6 million for the weekend. The movie opened last Wednesday and the five-day cum is $14.2 million. The result seems underscore the potential of digital documentary/alternative content. Disneynature launched in 2008 with a slate of nature documentaries. At the time, Disney chairman Dick Cook said 3D was a possibility for future Disneynature releases.

“Earth” is the first title from producer-director Alastair Fothergill (BBC and Discovery Channel’s “Planet Earth”), who has multipicture deal with Disneynature.

Announced productions under the new banner include “Oceans” and “Orangutans: One Minute to Midnight.” Both are slated for a 2010 release.

Posted in Alternative Content, Digital 3D

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JVC Turns Heads With 3D Conversion Technology

Posted by Carolyn Giardina | April 22, 2009 5:26 pm

JVC unveiled a potentially disruptive 3D technology at NAB this week.

The company is showing an early prototype of a 2D/3D conversion box that it is looking to further develop as a basic conversion system and, get this, sell for $10,000.

Today more elaborate methods of converting 2D imagery to 3D can run anywhere from $50,000 per minute to over $100,000 per minute, depending on the complexity of the material.

Sunday at the NAB Digital Cinema Summit, Warner Bros. Technical Operations president Darcy Antonellis discussed the studio’s interest in converting library titles to 3D. She said: “We have 40 or so titles in our library that are potential candidates.”

Filmmakers are also looking to use conversion techniques, for new titles. Disney’s upcoming 3D release “G-Force,” for example, features live action that was shot in 2D and converting to 3D using In-Three’s Dimensionalization process. CG is being added to the hybrid 3D film at Sony Pictures Imageworks.

Posted in Digital 3D

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Battle Brews Over 3D Glasses In Europe

Posted by J. Sperling Reich | March 26, 2009 11:10 pm

RealD's Disposable 3D Glasses

Late last week I picked up on a rumor that was circulating about European exhibitors. Apparently, they are rejecting digital 3D versions of DreamWorks Animation’s “Monsters vs. Aliens” in lieu of 2D digital and 35mm prints as a response to being told that distributors will not pick up the tab for 3D glasses. The film opens internationally on March 27th.

Disposable polarized 3D glasses cost between 50 and 99 cents (USD) and are required to view digital 3D movies shown using systems manufactured by RealD and Masterimage. “Active glasses”, which operate using LCD lenses that flicker open and closed at the shutter rate of the projector, are reusable and cost upwards of USD $$25 to $30. Such glasses are necessary to view 3D films shown using XpanD technology. Reusable glasses for Dolby’s color wheel system cost USD $23. More than likely the dispute is over disposable glasses rather than reusable glasses since it is generally accepted that the exhibitor will be responsible for the latter.

In North America it has become a somewhat common practice for the distributor of a 3D film to pay for disposable glasses in part or entirely. This may not last however since distribution chiefs such as Mark Christiansen of Paramount Pictures have said they are determining whether they will be reimbursing an exhibitor for the cost of disposable glasses on a film by film basis.

The theatre owners that reported the unofficial boycott of “Monsters vs. Aliens” in 3D were from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and a few Scandinavian countries. Equipment manufacturers and the few dealers I spoke with confirmed the story, and were somewhat frustrated as they believe such issues will hold up the rollout of digital cinema in Europe. Read More »

Posted in Countries, Digital 3D
Tagged as Dolby, Dreamworks Animation, MasterImage, Palace Cinemas, RealD, Xpand

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Some Bright Ideas At ISDCF’s 3D Luminance Level Demo

Posted by J. Sperling Reich | March 25, 2009 11:45 pm

ISDCF Chairman Jerry Pierce

On Tuesday at the AMC Burbank 16 in Burbank, CA, the Inter-Society Digital Cinema Forum (ISDCF) held a luminance level demonstration of digital 3D content which had been mastered for different light levels. The ISDCF is not a standards body and thus the demo was not a test, but simply a way for industry professionals to see what 3D content would look like at brighter levels than the 4 foot-lamberts (ftL) to 4.5 ftL that is common luminance for most 3D movies today. One of the goals was to examine the emotional and technical impact of screening the content at different luminance levels.

Speaking of the content, material from the following films was shown:

“Journey To The Center of the Earth 3D”

“Miley Ray Cyrus/Hannah Montana: Best of Both Worlds”

“The Polar Express”

“Tokyo Mater”

“U2:3D”

A brand new Christie XD projector was brought in and connected to Doremi DSVJ2 server. Since it already existed at the theatre, the RealD XLS system was employed as the 3D technology. As well, RealD’s dynamic EQ was used to “ghostbust” the content as it was piped between the server and the projector. The Christie projector was set to triple flash (show each frame three times per eye).

Unfortunately, the ISDCF did not receive raw footage so that they could be timed from scratch. Instead they received material that had already been mastered for 4.5 ftL. Any adjustments made to master the content for higher luminance levels were made on top of this. As well, all of the clips were either set at night or were indoors. There was no daylight footage. All of the clips were originally shot on digital rather than film.

Posted in Digital 3D, Digital Cinema, Miscellaneous, Organizations
Tagged as Christie, Doremi, ISDCF, Jerry Pierce, RealD

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Palace Cinemas Brings 3D To Central Europe

Posted by J. Sperling Reich | March 19, 2009 5:20 pm

Palace Cinemas 3Digital

Central Europe will soon be able to experience 3D digital releases the way filmmakers had intended thanks to Palace Cinemas. Tomorrow the exhibitor will announce they will be adding twelve 3D digital screens to their circuit just in time for Dreamworks Animation’s “Monsters vs. Aliens” to premiere on March 26th.

Palace, which is the largest exhibitor in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, will install three screens in Prague, two screens in Brno, two in Bratislava and an additional five in Budapest, where the company is headquartered. The news is a bit of a coup for Masterimage. The Korean company’s 3D technology has been selected for 11 of the installations. Palace, which already has one RealD system, will install an additional RealD screen at West End, one of their premiere venues in Budapest. Recently RealD and Dolby have stolen the spotlight when it comes to making announcments about new 3D installations.

“We like Masterimage, said Palace CEO V.J. Maury of why they chose the technology. “It’s a combination of great 3D on the screen and the right price. And we wouldn’t add another RealD screen at West End if it were not for its excellent 3D picture.”

Posted in Countries, Digital 3D, Digital Cinema
Tagged as Barco, Czech Repblic, Film-Ton-Technik, Hungary, MasterImage, Palace Cinemas, RealD, Sloviaka, V.J. Maury, XDC

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ISDCF To Hold Demo Of 3D Luminance Levels

Posted by J. Sperling Reich | March 9, 2009 10:17 pm

Ever wonder what digital 3D would look like at 14 foot-lamberts (ftL) rather than the dim 4 ftL at which it is usually projected? If so then you’ll want to sign up for a 3D demo being held by the Inter-Society Digital Cinema Forum (ISDCF). On March 24th at the AMC Burbank 16 in Burbank, CA, the ISDCF will be screening a clip reel of 3D material at multiple luminance levels including 4.5, 6, 10, and 14 ftL luminance. The same material will be screened at two separate demos, one at 10:00 am and one at 12:00 pm. If these screenings times fill up there is talk that an 8:00 am session will be added.

ISDCF is being careful to let attendees know their demo is for educational purposes only. It is not a test and no recommendations will be made upon its completion. The purpose of the demonstration is to show industry professionals how different luminance levels impact the projection of digital 3D images and to help initiate discussion.

Clips being shown represent the usual round up of 3D titles including “Polar Express”, “Beowulf”, “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and “U2:3D” among others. The content will be projected across a 62’ throw onto a 35’ silver screen using a Christie projector outfitted with RealD’s 3D system. The address of the demo is as follows:

AMC Burbank 16
125 E. Palm Avenue
Burbank, CA 91502

More information about the demo and a link to RSVP can be found here.

UPDATE: March 13, 2009 - Because both demonstrations filled up with over 100 people so quickly, it looks like the ISDCF will add a third demo time. They are trying to add a show at 1:30 pm, but have not confirmed the time with AMC. If they can’t get that time, they will add a 9:00 am show, move the 10 am show to 10:30 am. Stay tuned for confirmation of the third time, as it may require those who have RSVP’d already to do so again.

Posted in Digital 3D, Events
Tagged as ISDCF

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