Tag Archives: Avatar

Will “Clash” Unleash A Titanic Backlash Against 3D?

April 1, 2010

“Release the Kraken,” Liam Neeson’s Zeus commands in the WB’s “Clash of the Titans” re-make, but Hollywood should be more concerned that the film itself might release a backlash against the 3D format. There are several indicators that point to a perfect storm brewing against what has come to be regarded as the cinema industry’s digital savior.

Amongst Hollywood filmmakers there has been unusually vociferous attacks against Warner Bros.’ decision to go for a rushed eight-week conversion of “Clash of the Titans” to 3D. The conversion is a true test for Prime Focus whose technology is unproven on such large scale projects. Fresh off the global success of “Avatar” James Cameron weighed in against “slapdash conversion” in a recent BBC article that re-hashed Mike Fleming’s more in-depth Deadline article, where Cameron said that after the success of his award-winning epic:

“Now, you’ve got people quickly converting movies from 2D to 3D, which is not what we did. They’re expecting the same result, when in fact they will probably work against the adoption of 3D because they’ll be putting out an inferior product.”

Micheal Bay threw more fuel on the fire in a Deadline post and even appeared to take a direct swipe at Prime Focus, an Indian based post-production company that has been doing the bulk of the work on “Clash of the Titans’” conversion from 2D-to-3D :

“I’m used to having the A-team working on my films, and I’m going to hand it over to the D-team, have it shipped to India and hope for the best? This conversion process is always going to be inferior to shooting in real 3D. Studios might be willing to sacrifice the look and use the gimmick to make $3 more a ticket, but I’m not. “Avatar” took four years. You can’t just sh*t out a 3D movie. I’m saying, the jury is still out.”

Popularity: 49% [?]

Posted in Analysis, Digital 3D

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Why U.S. Exhibitors Are Raising 3D Ticket Prices

By J. Sperling Reich

March 29, 2010

Sooner or later it was bound to happen. After all, 3D movies have topped the North American box office for nine out of 13 weeks this year. And 3D films like “Avatar” and “Alice In Wonderland” have generated record breaking grosses, far beyond industry expectations. With more and more moviegoers showing up for 3D content, it should come as no surprise that at some point the public, not to mention the media, was going to start noticing the extra USD $3 they were forced to pay for the latest multi-dimensional blockbuster. In fact, after this past week the industry may begin to face some consumer backlash at the 3D surcharge, especially since a handful of large U.S. theatre chains raised 3D and 3D Imax ticket prices as much as 26% in some locations.

We’ll get to a few reasons as to why exhibitors might be raising ticket prices during an economic recession and what it might mean for the industry as a whole before the end of this post, but first lets go over the history of this recent increase.

Lauren A.E. Shuker and Ethan Smith of the Wall Street Journal were the first to report the price hikes on Wednesday, causing a rash of similar news stories to surface by Friday. The original source of the news about price increases came from a research report released on Wednesday by Richard Greenfield, a media analyst for BTIG, an institutional brokerage and financial services company.

Mr. Greenfield surveyed 10 random theatres in major cities throughout the U.S. and found that on average 2D adult ticket prices rose 4.1% (USD $0.42), 3D non-Imax adult ticket prices increased 8.3% (USD $1.13) and 3D Imax adult tickets were up 9.9% (USD $1.50). Most of the new prices, which varied by theatre took affect on Friday, just in time for the release of Dreamworks Animation’s “How To Train Your Dragon”. Read More »

Popularity: 41% [?]

Posted in Box Office

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3D is a Wonderland For “Alice” and Exhibitors

By Carolyn Giardina

March 15, 2010

It’s fitting that on the eve of theatrical exhibition trade show Showest—and as DCIP claimed its long-awaited funding—Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland” topped the weekend box office during its second week in release and demonstrated the continued strength of 3D.
Alice earned an estimated $62 million, extending its domestic haul to $208.6 million, according to weekend box office figures announced Sunday by Rentrak and its Box Office Essentials theatrical box office data collection and analytical service.
Tim Burton’s fantasy played in 3,728 locations, and of course included a digital and Imax 3D release.
Many insiders believe this wildly successful start—Burton’s most successful do date—is t least in part due to the “Avatar effect.” And insiders suggest that 3D can account for roughly 80% of the “Alice” box office figures.
But “Alice” is not likely to benefit fully from this bump, as Dreamworks Animation’s “How To Train Your Dragon” is set to open March 26, taking the majority of the 3D screens. This of course is not a new concern, but it only becomes more pronounced as box office numbers climb to record heights and tentpole titles demonstrate staying power.
“Dragon” of course has a similar problem, with the opening of the 3D “Clash of the Titans” on April 2, when the industry will get its first look at a film entirely converted to 3D by Prime Focus.
“Alice” was lensed in 2D, and the live action scenes were converted to 3D by companies including In-Three and Legend Films. The film’s lead VFX house, Sony Picture Imageworks, handled the 3D conversion for the CG Wonderland environment that makes up the majority of the run time.
According to Rentrak estimates, the top five in the domestic market included the debuts of “Green Zone” with $14, 5 million, “She’s Out of My League” with $9.6 million, and “Remember Me” with $8.6 million. “Shutter Island” rounded out the top five with $8.1 million, giving the film a new domestic total of $108 million. “Avatar” continued to perform, earning an estimated $6.6 million, for a new domestic total of $730.3 million.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Posted in Box Office

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“Avatar” Pirate Given A Pass Down Under

By J. Sperling Reich

March 2, 2010

Here’s a new twist on the old story of camcorder piracy and movie theft. A recent news blip published in Australia’s Herald reported an incident in which movie theatre personnel at a cinema in Glendale spotted a man video taping a showing of “Avatar”. The catch is, the man was 88-years-old.

The cinema manager got the gentleman to stop recording and called the police. When authorities arrived the man, who was wearing large glasses and got around with the aid of a walking stick, informed them that he was recording the film for his wife who was unable to make it to the cinema.

While awfully kind of the man to be thinking of his wife, he was informed that such activity is illegal. The police proceeded to delete the movie from the man’s camcorder and let him sit through the rest of the film. As the Los Angeles Times points out, he may not have been let off the hook so easily in the United States, senior citizen or not. In 2005, the Motion Picture Association of America sued a 67-year-old man for $600,000 after pirated movies were downloaded onto his computer via a peer-to-peer service.

I wonder if the 88-year-old Australian man will get any credit simply for knowing how to work the camcorder or for his willingness to hold it through a movie that’s more than two-and-a-half hours long.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Posted in Piracy

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Germany Experiences A Digital Hiccup With “Avatar”

By J. Sperling Reich

December 30, 2009

Problems With "Avatar" In Germany

It was bound to happen. With James Cameron’s 3D epic “Avatar” being released on more than 16,000 screens in 122 countries on December 18th, surely there would be a few snafus. One Deluxe insider claimed “Avatar” marked the first movie title for which they shipped more hard drives with digital cinema packages (DCPs) than 35mm prints. So whether it was a faulty server, malfunctioning projector or invalid key, a few dark screens or missed screenings seemed inevitable. And with the enormous amount of promotion and hype surrounding “Avatar’s” release there were thousands of sold out auditoriums making whatever problems that cropped up difficult to hide.

Few would have predicted that such issues would be caused by humans, rather than technical errors. But that’s just what happened in Germany during the first few hours of “Avatar’s” release. Apparently upwards of 70 screens were unable to play the film in digital 3D because they had not received the keys, or received the wrong keys. The problem affected theatres run by Cinestar and Cinemaxx in cities such as Eisenhuettenstadt, Mainz, Garbsen and Berlin. Audiences that had shown up for the first showings of the film were told they could see the film in 2D or were offered a refund.

It should come as no surprise that news of the dark screens spread rapidly in mainstream media, especially in the tech press. Outlets such as The Register and Heise ran stories that faulted Deluxe Digital, the service provider Twentieth Century Fox used to distribute both 35mm and digital prints. However, having seen first hand the amount of resources, energy and effort Deluxe put into the release of “Avatar” it is highly unlikely that they somehow managed to bungle the key delivery. More probable is that one of Fox’s field offices neglected to relay some last minute playdates they had managed to secure.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Posted in Digital Cinema

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E3 Gaming Confab Interests Hollywood

By Carolyn Giardina

June 5, 2009

One of every three consumer’s entertainment dollars spent in March, were spent on computer and video games—more than going to the movies, suggested Michael Gallagher, CEO of the Entertainment Software Association.
He announced this figure during an address at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, ESA’s annual computer and video game confab, this week at the Los Angeles Convention Center. In some ways, one could look at E3 as a sort of Showest for the gaming industry.
Gallagher gave a state of the industry address during which he said that even in this tough economy, consumers continue to turn to games for entertainment. He reported that sales of computer and video games in 2008 reached $11.7 billion in the U.S. alone.
E3 hosted previews of upcoming game titles, which attendees had the chance to play on the exhibition floor. This included a slate based on upcoming movies, including “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, “G-Force” and “The Princess and the Frog.”
Meanwhile, Hollywood filmmakers’ demonstrated growing interest in the market. James Cameron introduced his upcoming “Avatar” 3D video game at the Ubisoft press conference, and Steven Spielberg joined Microsoft to preview a developing camera that would allow video games to respond to a player’s body movements and voice—rather than a controller.
According to a new ESA report, 42% of American homes have a video game console and 68% of American households play computer or video games.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Posted in Events

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Cameron: ’4K is a concept born in fear.’

By Patrick von Sychowski

April 11, 2008

It looks like a James Cameron will not be on Sony’s Christmas card list this year. In an in-depth interview in Variety, as part of its NAB coverage, he goes into details on the practicalities and more profound implications of working in stereoscopy and the future that the format has for cinemas. The interview is worth reading in full, but the part that is particularly interesting is where he discusses the relative merits of higher resolution versus higher frame rates, worth quoting in full:

4K is a concept born in fear. When the studios were looking at converting to digital cinemas, they were afraid of change, and searched for reasons not to do it. One reason they hit upon was that if people were buying HD monitors for the home, with 1080×1920 resolution, and that was virtually the same as the 2K standard being proposed, then why would people go to the cinema? Which ignores the fact that the social situation is entirely different, and that the cinema screen is 100 times larger in area. So they somehow hit on 4K, which people should remember is not twice the amount of picture data, it is four times the data. Meaning servers need to be four times the capacity, as does the delivery pipe to the theater, etc.

But 4K doesn’t solve the curse of 24 frames per second. In fact it tends to stand in the way of the solutions to that more fundamental problem. The NBA execs made a bold decision to do the All Star Game 3-D simulcast at 60 frames per second, because they didn’t like the judder. The effect of the high-frame-rate 3-D was visually astonishing, a huge crowdpleaser.

I would vastly prefer to see 2K/48 frames per second as a new display standard, than 4K/24 frames per second. This would mean shooting movies at 48 fps, which the digital cameras can easily accommodate. Film cameras can run that fast, but stock costs would go up. However, that could be offset by shooting 3-perf, or even 2-perf, because you’d get the resolution back through the higher display rate. The 48 fps negative or digital master can be skip-printed to generate a 24 fps 35mm DI negative for making release prints, so 48 is the magic number because it remains compatible with the film-based platform which will still be with us for some time, especially internationally. 30 and 60 fps are out for that reason. Anyway the benefit of 30 is not great enough to be worth the effort, especially when 48 is so easy to achieve. SMPTE tests done about 15 years ago showed that above 48 frames the returns diminish dramatically, and 60 fps is overkill. So 48 is the magic number.

Of course, the ideal format is 3-D/2K/48 fps projection. I’d love to have done “Avatar” at 48 frames. But I have to fight these battles one at a time. I’m just happy people are waking up to 3-D.

Maybe on “Avatar 2.”

Earlier in the interview he says that a “film should not be marketed first and foremost as a 3-D experience”, which seems to damn and doom ‘Journey 3D’, which is a terrible film in every way, apart from the 3D aspect.

Sadly the only question that doesn’t get asked or answered in the interview is why Cameron didn’t shoot ‘Aquaman’ in 3D.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Posted in Digital 3D

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No Avatar vs. Monsters vs. Aliens at the BO

By Patrick von Sychowski

September 20, 2007

It was a battle of the titans at the box office that was destined not to be. Paramount and DreamsWorks Animation (DWA) have moved the release date of ‘Monsters vs. Aliens‘ significantly forward to avoid a clash with James Cameron’s ‘Avatar‘. Both films were set to be showcase examples of the new digital 3D technology in cinemas already used to screen ‘Meet the Robinsons‘, ‘Monster House‘ and the upcoming ‘Beowulf‘ stereoscopically. Having initially both set release dates for 22 May 2009, ‘Monsters vs. Aliens’ at first shifted slightly to 15 May but have now moved further forward to 27 March 2009, making it an Easter release. ‘Avatar’ has meanwhile not budged, showing the strength of Cameron and Fox. Quoted in the Hollywood Reporter, Katzenberg was pragmatic about the move:

Had “Monsters” stuck to its proposed May release, “I saw more and more problems splitting the market for 3-D right at the time when it will be becoming the most exciting thing in moviegoing,” Katzenberg told The Reporter. “Instead of splitting the market, I want to see it get launched in the best possible way.”

Katzenberg predicted that there would be 5,000-8,000 3-D screens available domestically by the time “Monsters” rolls out in 2009. While a 2-D version of the film also will play in smaller markets, the majority of its U.S. dates will use the new 3-D technologies.

With its new release date, “Monsters” will have an eight-week window in the 3-D corridor before “Avatar” takes over for the Memorial Day holiday.

Given that digital 3D movies have staying power, this should just about give MvA enough time to complete its run. Variety also has an article about it, but it ads little new, other than Katzenberg quipping that “In 2009, summer begins on March 29,” though what is more likely is that on that day the power of digital 3D in cinemas will be tested as it outnumbers the releases on 35mm film or even regular 2D digital.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Posted in Analysis

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