Jeffrey Katzenberg has added his mighty voice to those singing the praises of 3-D movies as the direction of the future. The noted animation producer spoke at the opening day European Cinema Expo with a message: 3-D is the future, but digital cinemas have to be in place first.
According to Variety, Katzenberg touted the merits of 3-D digital movies as an unmissable opportunity for vendors at the convention. He pointed out that 3-D cinema is virtually pirate-proof, as camcorder recordings can’t translate the image they are recording, while Steve Kribbs, Chief Operating Officer for Vue Entertainment (a U.K. exhibitor) stated that his cinemas have experienced a 40%-50% growth in revenue and occupancy when showing 3-D flicks. If it’s worked for him, then it should work for others.
The hard sell approach seemed to stem from the speed at which European cinemas are converting from film to digital. Katzenberg said thousands of screens need to be converted prior to the 2009 anticipated “switch” toward 3-D digital cinema, but Europe is far from that. Even the United States is far from that and also has begun to stagnate its progress, although Katzenberg feels that the change will come quicker and more willingly once cinema owners and execs see what 3-D cinema has to offer.
As for that 2009 date, Katzenberg spoke about the costs DreamWorks is already taking on to make that happen, with an estimated $15 million added cost to each film produced in order to start authoring them in 3-D two years from now. Despite the cost (and presumably the added cost that will be passed to us as moviegoers), Katzenberg still sees this as a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Maybe Katzenberg is right. Maybe we all do need to see 3-D digital movies to sell us on the concept. Right now I don’t see the point in the change other than finding a way to deter piracy and giving studios another gimmick to sell. Then again, I haven’t seen a 3-D digital movie yet. Perhaps Katzenberg’s Dreamworks, along with Paramount (who also was at the opening day of the Cinema Expo) needs to start dong the hard sell to viewers as well as cinemas. After all, if we’re not convinced we need to see movies that way, are we really going to pay more at the box office to see movies in this “chance of a lifetime” presentation?
