The Wall Street Journal-20080215-WEEKEND JOURNAL- Entertainment - Culture -- Hollywood Report- Clash of the 3-D Rock Stars- As More-Realistic Films Hit Theaters- U2 and Miley Cyrus Compete for Screens

Return to: The_Wall_Street_Journal-20080215

WEEKEND JOURNAL; Entertainment & Culture -- Hollywood Report: Clash of the 3-D Rock Stars; As More-Realistic Films Hit Theaters, U2 and Miley Cyrus Compete for Screens

Full Text (1172  words)

In the nation's theaters, Hannah Montana has rocked U2 -- and delivered a lesson in both the promise and limitations of new 3-D film technology.

After some delays in postproduction, a concert movie called "U23D" was finally set to hit just about every screen enabled for 3-D in the country tonight. The film uses a series of U2 stadium concerts in Latin America to show how far the 3-D format has come since the days of gimmicky flicks like "Creature from the Black Lagoon" in the 1950s. In the new film, U2 singer Bono appears to almost reach out and brush the viewer's cheek as he sings "Sunday Bloody Sunday," and the neck of the Edge's guitar seems to swoosh by your face.

But "U23D" has run into another 3-D concert movie: "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour." The world of 3-D film exhibition, it turns out, isn't big enough for both Hannah and Bono. Originally scheduled to run for just one week, the "tween"- oriented Hannah Montana film was extended by theater owners because of overwhelming popularity -- sidelining Bono & Co. until Feb. 22 in most markets. For now, "U23D" remains largely at a few dozen Imax theaters.

The situation underscores the challenges of 3-D technology. The industry is touting 3-D as its best shot at combating increasingly sophisticated home-theater systems. Among the 3-D titles in the pipeline: "Toy Story 3D" from Disney's Pixar; "Monsters vs. Aliens" from DreamWorks Animation; and "Avatar," the next film from "Titanic" director James Cameron.

In decades past, old 3-D technology gave many viewers headaches or eyestrain. Now, editors have better postproduction tools, for example enabling them to move between distant and close-up shots more smoothly.

At the theater, projection techniques have improved too, allowing the left and right frames needed to create the 3-D effect to run in perfect synchronicity. The old glasses with red-and-blue lenses are gone, replaced by tinted, polarized lenses, which help give the images a more realistic hue. All this creates a better, less jarring experience for the filmgoer.

A number of companies are trying to ride the 3-D trend, from filming to setting up projection systems in theaters. "U23D," for example, was filmed on cameras from 3ality and Pace.

But the industry has to overcome some hiccups -- including technical and distribution hurdles -- before the technology meets its full potential.

Only a few hundred theaters around the nation can handle a movie in 3-D, which requires a special projector or an add-on for a digital projector, at a cost of about $25,000-$50,000 either way. That means limited slots when a 3-D movie opens, potentially leading to snafus if two 3-D movies are competing for space at the same time.

That was the problem when "U23D" butted up against "Hannah Montana," which has taken in $53.8 million so far, making theater owners reluctant to take it off screens. "It's unbelievable grosses for this time of year," says J. Wayne Anderson, chairman of R/C Theatres Management Corp., which has 3-D technology on a screen in Hanover, Pa. For "U23D," he says, "it was a no-brainer that we had to push it back." On his screen and others, the delay means "Hannah Montana" is likely scooping up ticket sales that could have gone to U2 this holiday weekend. And now, with such a big lag between its Imax release Jan. 23 and its release in 3-D-ready regular theaters Feb. 22, "U23D" could lose momentum.

But backers of "U23D" had little choice. They couldn't push back their Imax release to match the Feb. 22 release date for regular theaters because many Imax theaters were already booked to run "The Spiderwick Chronicles." Also, they wanted to open in regular theaters on the heels of January's Sundance Film Festival, so they could ride the reviews the movie earned there.

The backers of the U2 movie say it will find its audience. "This is a movie with really long legs," says Lisa Truitt, president of National Geographic Cinema Ventures, which is distributing the movie. In some ways, says producer and 3ality Digital Chief Executive Sandy Climan, "U23D" is benefiting from the publicity "Hannah Montana" is bringing to 3-D technology in general. "Our trailer plays on the head of 'Hannah Montana,'" he says. "We are getting magnificent exposure."

Currently, 3-D systems are in only about 700 regular theaters, but in a year's time, 2,000 theaters should be upgraded to 3-D. One challenge won't be as easy to fix: the enormous costs that come with 3-D. Although Disney says its low-budget concert film "Hannah Montana" cost only $7 million to make, incorporating the technology into a movie generally adds around $10 million to the price tag -- meaning studios must be sure it will bring in an additional $20 million at the box office, factoring the half of sales revenue that goes to theaters. Unlike with regular movies, there is no way to make the money back on DVD sales, because at-home 3-D doesn't exist.

Proponents of 3-D say the images are so stunning that drawing the extra crowds won't be a problem. "There are no words that actually convey how compelling and exciting and how much fun it is when you see these images in 3-D," says Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation, which will be releasing "Monsters vs Aliens," next year.

By the time that 3-D movie hits screens, his studio will have overcome some of the fiddly technical problems that plague such films, he says. For example, at moments in "U23D," faint doubles appear of certain images. Check out scenes where bass player Adam Clayton, dressed in red, appears against a red and black stage. That side effect, called "ghosting," has spawned a cottage industry in 3-D postproduction, predictably dubbed "ghostbusting." While the ghostbusters can correct, or at least minimize, a lot of the shadows, "sometimes you can't correct," says Jerry Pierce, a studio technology consultant. "Especially if it's a black background."

Another drawback: 3-D is considerably dimmer than regular movies. Although that sometimes fits the movie, like the moody "Beowulf," sometimes it detracts. And it's hard to add subtitles -- key for international releases -- without cutting into the 3-D effect on the bottom of the screen. In addition, most types of 3-D projection create areas known as "hotspots." Depending on where in the theater a viewer is sitting, parts of the screen can look brighter than others. Luckily, many of these problems are only obvious to a group Mr. Pierce calls the "technoweenies."

While 3-D movies will doubtless impress audiences now seeing the latest generation of the technology for the first time, after a few movies, the novelty will likely wear off. Jeff Bock, a box-office analyst at Exhibitor Relations Co., already sounds jaded talking about the frequent 3-D swings of guitar heads out into the audience in both "Hannah Montana" and "U23D." The maneuver "is already cliched and we're only two movies in," he says. "How many bands can incorporate this [technology] and continue to make it new?"