WILL 3D LURE MOVIEGOERS TO A 20-YEAR-OLD MOVIE?

Ostensibly, Friday’s re-release of Jurassic Park, converted to 3D, is aimed at heightening interest in the April 26 Blu-ray release of the movie. But some forecasters indicate that despite the fact that it has been available on standard DVD for nearly 20 years, the 3D release could generate about $15-20 million this weekend at the domestic box office. (TheWrap.com headlined: “Jurassic Park 3D Re-Release Looks Like a ProfitSaurus for Universal.”) It’s being shown on 2,600 screens — 300 of them IMAX. In an interview with USA Today, director Steven Spielberg said that he had 3D images in his own mind when he made the film in 1993, going for a “trombone effect” — where certain images would pop out at the audience. “Never in a second did I ever think that I could be making this movie in 3D, because 20 years ago 3D wasn’t ready for primetime, but now that it is — and the post-conversion of the Titanic movie was so extraordinary it looked like it had originally been shot in 3D — that was the first time that I thought that people who did the conversion for Titanic, perhaps they could do the same thing for Jurassic Park.” According to reports, the conversion by Burbank, CA-based Stereo D cost $30 million, about half what the entire production budget of the film was in 1993. Writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, critic Nell Minow “the best 3D conversion I’ve seen.”