3-D's Likely Future

It might surprise many of you, being a part of the movie theatre industry, but I am very much against 3-D, especially its complete overuse that Avatar basically ushered in 2009, having studios scramble to convert their 2-D product to 3-D for the extra buck.

I've been seeing some terrific railing against 3-D on Ebert's site, which currently has a link to this letter from master editor/sound mixer Walter Murch. Murch knows a thing or two about film, and he approaches the argument against 3-D scientifically.

Back in the early stages of the rebirth of 3-D, the films that were coming out, like Meet the Robinsons, were easily outgrossing their 2-D counterparts (percentage-wise). It was a novelty, and people were willing to shell out some extra dollars to see something new. But now, everything that gets the 3-D treatment seems to feel the need to show it off in some way. 3-D really only works when it comes to showing depth. It really doesn't work at all when "things are flying out of the screen at you." The effect is almost always bad, since the image coming off the screen has an unusual termination, and the effect is lost.

2010 was littered with 3-D content, but it's just a sampling of what you're going to see in 2011. Almost every tentpole release this summer will be available in 3-D:

May 6: Thor

May 13: Priest

May 20: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

May 27: Kung Fu Panda 2

June 17: Green Lantern

June 24: Cars 2

July 1: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

July 15: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

July 22: Captain America: The First Avenger

August 3: The Smurfs

August 19: Fright Night and Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World

August 26: Final Destination 5

And that's forgetting many of these movies are long-in-the-tooth sequels, 3-D or not.

The problem with this slate is that most of these movies would do good or great business without the 3-D premium. And once these movies hit and make their money, it's going to be "proof positive that 3-D is viable," because the studios are going to see the grosses and believe that the ends justify the means. Over the past year, I've seen a noticeable change in family film-going where the 2-D version of a movie is favored over the 3-D. Never so much as with Tangled, a movie that is approaching $200 million, and obviously didn't need 3-D to be profitable.

As always, the consumer has the power to stop, or at least slow, the number of 3-D films they are shoving down your throat. Most of these will have 2-D brothers, but really, avoiding a movie altogether if you can help it will send the message.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like 2005

This summer kicks off with Iron Man 2, the sequel to a very popular and huge hit from 2008. My review of it will be tomorrow on the nymoviereviews site, but here's a hint: this isn't a great kickoff to the summer.

In fact, this summer has a lot in common with the summer of 2005. Remember that summer, where you couldn't turn around without some publication/periodical focusing on a phantom slump that was based on the previous year's numbers and wasn't paying attention to the trashy product that was hitting the screens?

This summer is sequel-heavy. There are a couple of hopeful originals, or "originals," looking for bank, but this summer is entirely contingent on the goodwill generated by previous entries. The summer of 2005 was hoping you really, really loved The Honeymooners and Bewitched. We only have a couple of remakes, or different versions of movies that have already been made, this summer

After Iron Man 2 goes for The Dark Knight record this weekend, we have yet another version of Robin Hood. The marketers can throw out Gladiator, and Russell Crowe, and Ridley Scott all they want to, this movie is going to bomb. How many of you get excited seeing Crowe in this role and seeing yet another swords and sandals epic? I haven't seen a movie like this take off since Lord of the Rings, and that's 7 years now, and not really the reason people showed up anyway. Even Braveheart had a hard time making money back in 1995.

Then we have yet another sequel, one that actually comes after a chapter that generated a lot of bad-will...Shrek Forever After...in 3D! I have no doubt the movie will make some money, but if this has a whiff of Shrek the Third badness, this one won't make $150 million.

Competing against Shrek is the one movie that might get a cult following, but probably won't be a huge hit and that's the SNL skit-to-movie MacGruber.

Then, you always have to give Jerry Bruckheimer his props...even though Prince of Persia is based on a video game, it looks like the kind of Bruckheimer-produced garbage that people flock to, and it should be a pretty big hit with Memorial Day behind it.

But also having Memorial Day behind it is Sex and the City 2. Another sequel, another movie that looks absolutely atrocious, and yet will "strike a blow" for women when it becomes a huge mega-hit. I'm sorry, this is the kind of cinema that women really want? Really?

June starts the possible slump talk. On the 4th, we have the Apatow-produced kind-of-a-spinoff Get Him to the Greek, which contains the Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) character from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. After looking at the previews, and yes even the Red Band version, I'm not seeing this take off as some huge hit, and it competes against other movies that are going to have a hard time with audiences, like the buddy-action-romantic-comedy Killers with Katherine Hiegl and Ashton Kutcher. The comic-strip adaptation Marmaduke...ugh...and the one interesting movie out of this group is Splice, the Species-ish sci-fi thriller, which probably has no chance at all.

June 11 comes our creative-dearth weekend: The A-Team, which should do G.I. Joe kind of business (I'm thinking a little less), and the remake of The Karate Kid, starring Will Smith's kid Jaden and Jackie Chan. I'm not seeing either of these making a huge impression.

Then there's Jonah Hex, a Western comic book movie that looks OK but I can't see being huge, and Pixar's first real test of their brand's staying power with Toy Story 3. I have every bit of faith that Pixar will deliver yet another winner, and I loved the first two Toy Storys, but it's been 11 years since Toy Story 2 was released. That kind of gap doesn't usually bode well for franchises, but if any studio could do it, it's Pixar.

The 25th brings aging stars with broad-appeal films that I can't see doing crazy, lasting business. Tom Cruise returns with the action-comedy Knight and Day, co-starring Cameron Diaz. A lot of their thunder will have been stolen by Killers three weeks before it comes out. The same kind of premise; the girl is a hopelessly naive unwitting action star, the guy is a secret government agent with all sorts of skilz. Advance word is good, but you're looking at a pretty hard fade after it's released most likely.

And that's definitely true for The Grown-Ups, the new Adam Sandler comedy with his buddies David Spade, Kevin James, Chris Rock, and Rob Schneider. It looks like a camp movie with lots of pain and pee jokes. It might be one of his lowest-grossing comedies ever when all is said and done.

Then we have the July 4 weekend.

We have Twilight: Eclipse, a guaranteed money-maker. Running up against it: M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender, based on the Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon series. My question is, why? Why even attempt to compete against the unholy behemoth that is Twilight?

July 9 brings the I-still-don't-know-what-it's-about-even-though-I've-seen-4-trailers Despicable Me, with voice work from Steve Carell and a million others. It competes against Predators, which I don't think has a chance in hell of being a hit. No Predator movie has ever done well, even when they battled the Aliens.

I've seen Inception being described as the most anticipated movie of the summer. Directed by Christopher Nolan, I am amped for it. But does the movie scream out, "Super hit" when I see the trailers? It really doesn't. Those kind of movies where they're trying to keep everything secret, and it's got a sketchy premise that's hard to describe, don't generally do well, or as well as hoped.

Inception competes against The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and I haven't seen enough of that to think it might do well...it looks like another one of those Percy Jackson type of movies that will have some decent pull but not much.

The following weekend, Dinner for Schmucks arrives, with Steve Carell and Paul Rudd. It looks pretty funny...not sure of its potential box office though. The big movie being released this weekend is Salt, with Angelina Jolie doing her badass babe routine. I don't see this doing even what Wanted did a couple of years ago (Wanted barely hit $100 million after a good opening weekend)...it doesn't have the concept.

The 30th is going to be a big bomb: We have the sequel to Cats and Dogs...who asked for it? The original came out 9 years ago. Then there's the trying-to-be-Twilight movie Beastly, coming from CBS Pictures, which has had a horrible track record so far: Back-Up Plan, Extraordinary Measures.

August brings us Step-Up 3D...yawn. Then the next weekend is the every-action-star-ever-is-in-it The Expendables, which will have some retro interest. Too bad Stallone couldn't get Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger for bigger roles in it. There's the very interesting Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which I think has no chance at all despite it's original concept. Edgar Wright's movies have never been huge draws for the casual movie fan.

Hey, on the 2oth...Nanny McPhee Returns...

Closing out August is a 3D treatment of the old Roger Corman cult hit Piranha. Because people for 30 years have been clamoring for it.

September is its usual wasteland: We have a new Resident Evil in 3D and finally, Oliver Stone's sequel to Wall Street arrives.

I really think this summer is going to have a lot of movies that have an initial explosive weekend, and then die shortly after. There's also going to be one or two that people should want to go to, but don't because it just doesn't look good. This isn't exactly a record-breaking summer we're seeing here. Only a couple of originals have a chance, and even they might end up disappointing. There's entirely too much product relying on old stock to make its money...seriously, Toy Story 3 I am very curious about. It has all the advantages in the world to a be a big hit, but the franchise has been gone so long. The new 3D versions of Toy Story 1 & 2 didn't exactly attract a huge audience.

I won't be surprised if we hear of another "slump" this summer. It should still be better than 2005, and lack of originality isn't exactly a new thing. It's just when studios rely on things that are so old is when the lack of originality becomes more noticeable.

Decade in Review: Movies: Box Office

I debated awhile as to whether to write some of my observations about movies this decade on nymoviereviews, or here. Obviously, I decided here.

The first observation I have in a long line of posts forthcoming is about the box office. Whether you are a believer in total attendance being the true measure of a film's popularity (and I would argue that more people see movies than ever before, just not in movie theatres) or not, the box office dollars exploded this decade unlike any other before it. I'd like to tell you the tale of Jaws.

At the beginning of 1990, Jaws was sitting there at 5th all-time on the domestic chart, behind the Star Wars trilogy and Steven Spielberg's own E.T. By the end of the 90's, the movie sat at 13th, after basically being unharmed by the eighties. It was Independence Day, in 1996, that bounced Jaws from the top 10 after having been there for 21 years.

My point about Jaws and this past decade is that now, Jaws sits at 48th all-time. (By the way, Independence Day is now 30th)

That's right, the movie that grossed $260 million back in 1975 has been passed 47 times, 35 of them in the recently-completed decade.

What happened? Well, ticket prices certainly account for some of it, but this was the decade of the franchise. Moviegoers went to the familiar more than in any other time in history. The top 10 of the decade are as follows:

1. The Dark Knight, sequel to Batman Begins and part of the Batman franchise.

2. Shrek 2

3. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Movie #2 in what became an unintelligible series.

4. Spider-Man. One of three non-sequels to make it, but who are we kidding? Decades of comic book fans were ready for this.

5. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, film #2 that somehow, despite all reason and integrity, found its way into the top 10 of all-time.

6. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

7. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, third in a franchise that had fifty years of Tolkien followers buoying the entire series into the billions of dollars worldwide.

8. Avatar, continuing the trend of James Cameron way overspending, but being let off the hook when the movie does insane business. Studios will now think it's OK to spend $300 million on a movie because they all have the chance to do what this one did. It'll be either 1st or 2nd of the decade by the time it's all over.

9. Spider-Man 2.

10. The Passion of the Christ. Mel Gibson marketed this movie as close to "you must watch this if you believe in Jesus Christ" as you could without actually saying it. Last I heard, that's a lot of people.

This top 10 doesn't include stuff like any of the Harry Potters, the other LOTRs, the other POTCs, and a load of Pixar movies, in which every new film builds upon earlier success much like sequels do. Before this decade, sequels were usually just a quick cash-in (they still make those, too), but now studios are thinking that their franchise can go to fours and fives with relative ease. And there's at least a consciousness to make the sequels look better than the first movie, which wasn't a requirement in years past. That's why Jaws is 48th now.

As a side note, studios started buying into this "popular reading series" thing and went overboard, as they often do. Harry Potter, LOTR, Spider-Man, X-Men, Iron Man, etc. were huge hits because they had time to build up followers who were hungry for movie versions. So, that's why The Golden Compass, The Seeker, City of Ember, Daredevil, and so on, were made in haste. Why weren't they hits? Because the audience is smaller, way smaller, than those legendary comic book and fantasy series.

I'll be back with some more in the coming days and weeks.