The nation’s once-inexhaustible appetite for 3D movies has begun to slow, but don’t take my word for it. I’m just a guy who’s been eagerly rooting for its demise. Take the NY Times and their recent article, “3-D Starts to Fizzle, and Hollywood Frets.” But don’t take it from the source, just read it here, I need the pageviews.
Ripples of fear spread across Hollywood last week after “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” which cost Walt Disney Studios an estimated $400 million [!!!] to make and market, did poor 3-D business in North America. While event movies have typically done 60 percent of their business in 3-D, “Stranger Tides” sold just 47 percent in 3-D. “The American consumer is rejecting 3-D,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the financial services company BTIG, wrote of the “Stranger Tides” results.
Memorial Day weekend did not give studio chiefs much comfort in the 3-D department. “Kung Fu Panda 2” sold $53.8 million in tickets from Thursday to Sunday, a soft total, and 3-D was 45 percent of the business, according to Paramount.
“Ripples of fear” is what I nicknamed my abs. Meanwhile, the Times reports that overseas, 3D is still strong (and also still new), so hopefully it fades there at the same rate. Or else expect a glut of titles like “Johnny Depp’s Robot Alien Drag-Revue Explosionaganza.” Foreigners love men in drag, don’t ask me why.
Studio chiefs acknowledge that the industry needs to sort out its 3-D strategy. Despite the soft results for “Kung Fu Panda 2,” animated releases have continued to perform well in the format, overcoming early problems with glasses that didn’t fit little faces. But general-audience movies like “Stranger Tides” may be better off the old-fashioned way.”With a blockbuster-filled holiday weekend skewing heavily toward 2-D, and 3-D ticket sales dramatically underperforming relative to screen allocation, major studios will hopefully begin to rethink their 3-D rollout plans for the rest of the year and 2012,” Mr. Greenfield said on Friday. [NYTimes]
This might be slightly hyperbolic, but that is literally the best news since the Holocaust ended. 3D is only more immersive than 2D in the sense that a pop-up book is more immersive than a regular book (Jackass 3 was better in 3D, but only because of the penises flying at my face). And beyond that, who wants to wear glasses in a theater? What am I, a nerd? I’ve spent a lifetime just keeping it real as sh*t, kicking ass and being a non-nerd. If you think I’m suddenly going to become one just because I want to see a movie about buff superheroes from space magic fighting at midnight on a Friday night… well you can just shove off, buddy.