3-D Movies: Wave of the Future?

Jeffrey Katzenberg said earlier this year that DreamWorks Animation would begin producing and releasing all of its films in 3-D starting in 2009, and now Reuters is reporting a surge in 3-D films for that same time period, most featuring a technology called Digital 3-D, pioneered by a Beverly Hills company called Real D, first developed to help NASA astronauts practice making repairs in space. Disney's 2005's Chicken Little, what the news service calls the first modern 3-D movie, featured the crisp, digital images and touched off the trend. Some of the new 3-D films for 2009? James Cameron's Avatar is leading the charge and director Bob Zemekis, who did WB's innovative Polar Express, has set up a 3-D studio with Disney. And then of course there's DreamWorks. Nearly every studio has one or two 3-D projects in production, Reuters reports, and they're hoping the new technology will help drive attendance and profits for the next decade, even though it costs an extra $10 to $15 million more to make a 3-D movie and most have to be played in specially outfitted theaters. "None of the 3-D systems in the past allowed you to immerse yourself in the frame," said Walden Media Chief Executive Cary Granat, whose Journey 3-D will be the first live-action digital 3-D feature film release in 2008. "This is really the next step of film-going," he told Reuters.