3-d movies Tagged Articles at Cinematical

DreamWorks Animation has gone 3-D wacky, announcing eight upcoming animated flicks in various stages of production.

Variety reports that CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg will show investors the DWA schedule in New York this week, as part of their new plan to release five new features every two years.

Considering that Monsters vs. Aliens was the company's only 2009 release, that's a pretty ambitious goal. And like fellow studios Pixar, Buena Vista, Fox, et al, DreamWorks is throwing all their money at 3-D features for the next few years.

The current DreamWorks Animation schedule is as follows:

How to Train Your Dragon (March 26, 2010) -- Based on the kids' book by British author Cressida Cowell, the comedy focuses on a young Viking lad named Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), son of chieftain Stoic the Vast (Gerard Butler), who must train a tiny, toothless dragon as a rite of passage. It also features Jonah Hill and America Ferrera.

Shrek Forever After (May 21, 2010) -- Hey look, another Shrek sequel. Well, you can't blame DWA for squeezing every penny from their most profitable franchise. The title appears to be inspired, in fact, by the "Shrek Ever After" toy line that came out in 2008, which isn't a great sign (it was originally titled Shrek Goes Fourth, and the very fact that it was clever obviously meant that it needed to be dumbed down.) Mike Myers returns as Shrek, who's been tricked by Rumpelstiltskin (Paul McCartney) into visiting a bizarro-Shrek world in which ogres are hunted, Rumpelstiltskin is king, and Shrek's never met Fiona. All -- and I mean all -- of the primary actors from the previous films return, making for one seriously crowded story.

Like an out-of-control freight train barreling down a hill, more 3-D movies are coming, whether we want them or not. Hollywood studios have placed their bets, theater owners are feeling the pressure to upgrade, and moviegoers are being pummeled with the idea that 3-D is the greatest thing since, well, the last time the studios tried to shove 3-D down our throats, in the long ago, musty, medieval decade known as "the 80s."

That being the case, perhaps we should bow to the inevitable and consider which upcoming movies should be in 3-D, and which ones would be a total wash with an extra-dimensional viewing experience. Amy Pascal of Sony Pictures Entertainment told Forbes Magazine that Spider-Man 4 "could be" shot in 3-D. She and fellow exec Michael Lynton think most animated movies will be in 3-D, and believe James Cameron's Avatar "could change the world," in Pascal's words. (Which we've heard before.) She continued, "I don't know that it will ever be the way you see dramas, but I can't say anymore that it won't be."

Announced 3-D releases for 2010 include: Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland, Piranha 3D, Toy Story 3, Step Up 3D, and Rapunzel. To allow for development and pre-production time, let's put our thinking caps and consider the future. For example, Spider-Man 4 is slated for release in May 2011. What other live-action pictures planned for 2011 would benefit from 3-D? How about Thor? What if he could hurl his hammer at you in 3-D? Or The First Avenger: Captain America? How about making Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part II extra special -- in 3-D? Why not The Hobbit? Maybe some flicks scheduled for late 2010 could make the switch. Green Lantern in 3-D, anyone?

Which ones should be in 3-D?

Twelve years ago, they said it couldn't be done. When James Cameron's Titanic got pushed back from a planned summer 1997 release date to the late fall, on top of multiple reports that the budget was the biggest ever, it was commonly thought that the film would never make its money back, that it would break the studios involved, and that Cameron's career was finished.

Cameron returned to the director's chair for Avatar, his long-awaited 3-D science fiction drama, due in December, and it looks like it will be a watershed movie. An upbeat article on 3-D in Time Magazine casually mentions that the budget has exceeded $300 million, which would make it the most expensive movie ever made. [* Time has now updated the article; see below.] No less an authority than Steven Spielberg "predicts it will be the biggest 3-D live-action film ever," which sounds great, until you realize that very few 3-D live-action films have been made recently. Box Office Mojo lists Spy Kids 3D: Game Over as the top-grossing live-action 3-D release in the US ($111 million) with Journey to the Center of the Earth close behind ($107 million). Avatar will have to do much better to have a prayer of making back its budget.

The biggest concern is that fewer theaters than anticipated have been converted to digital. In the Time Magazine article, Jeffrey Katzenberg of Dreamworks Animation "predicts that more than 2,000 theaters will be 3-D-ready by this week," just in time for the release of his studio's Monsters vs. Aliens on March 27.

What are your impressions of the new, improved 3-D? Did you see My Bloody Valentine or Coraline in 3-D? Will you seek out Monsters vs. Aliens in 3-D -- and pay a premium price -- or settle for 2-D? Will Avatar make or break 3-D?

* UPDATE: Thanks to commenter Eric for pointing out that Time has updated their article, which now adds at the end: "The original version of this story misstated the cost of the film Avatar as being in excess of $300 million. The correct figure is in excess of $200 million."

As of February 4, My Bloody Valentine 3-D grossed nearly $46 million domestically at the box office, according to Box Office Mojo. Some theaters did show the movie in old-fashioned two dimensions, but at least half the screenings were surely 3-D. So let's say -- $25 million in 3-D ticket sales. That's at least 2.5 million people seeing the movie, right? (According to Engadget HD, it's even more than that.)

That means at least 2.5 million pairs of 3-D glasses were handed out to audiences. These are not your mother's 3-D glasses; they're not like the ones you got for the Super Bowl ads, flimsy cardboard with red-and-blue cellophane. When you watch My Bloody Valentine or Bolt or Coraline in 3-D, you're given relatively sturdy plastic glasses that remind me of cheap sunglasses.

So what happens to those millions of pairs of plastic glasses after each screening of a 3-D movie? Do we throw them away, recycle them, or keep them for another movie? Imagine how much space 3 million pairs of glasses would take up in a landfill, all for one 3-D movie. At a time when our society is paying more attention to environmental sustainability and green initiatives, you'd think we'd have heard some outcry about the waste.