IS 3D ONCE AGAIN TURNING OUT TO BE A FAD?

The verdict is still out on 3D, following a summer that saw the premium for 3D tickets offset the lowest attendance since 1997. Today’s (Friday) Wall Street Journal observed that several of the summer’s biggest hits, including Inception, Iron Man 2, and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse were not released in 3D, while some of the summer’s biggest flops, including Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore and Piranha 3-D, were. Even the re-release of 20th Century Fox’s Avatar turned out to be a dud. Suggesting that the novelty of 3D may be wearing off, Chris Aronson, senior vice president for domestic distribution at Twentieth Century Fox, told the newspaper that the premium charges for 3-D movies could cause many families to stay at home in the future. “I have a very serious concern about how successful those [3D family films] are going to be in the future,” Aronson said. “Are kids really going to demand to see a movie in 3-D?”
UPDATE:
On Monday (Sept. 13), DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg, long one of 3D’s biggest boosters, suggested that he now has misgivings about the process. Katzenberg told Daily Variety, “The lure of 3D is not panning out.”