'Star Wars' saga set for 3D release starting 2012

[Deberg_1990]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...92835d50e86a3a



Big news on the 3D front.

Sources indicate that George Lucas is set on rereleasing the "Star Wars" franchise in new 3D conversions beginning in 2012. Although 3D versions have been rumored for some time, Lucas purportedly was waiting until there were enough screens available to make the release a sizable event.

Fox, which released all six original "Star Wars" films, also would release the 3D versions.

Episode I, "The Phantom Menace," would be first out of star-dock during early 2012. After that, each film would be released in order at the same time in consecutive years, depending on how well the first rerelease does.

Each conversion takes at least a year to complete, with Lucas overseeing the process to make sure each is as perfect as possible. He has said that the "Avatar" experience convinced him that "Star Wars" is ready for the state-of-the-art 3D treatment.

Starting with "Phantom Menace," Lucasfilm would use several higher-end conversion houses to work on the project. By late winter or early spring in 2012, the exhibition industry should have all the 3D screens anyone could want for such a release.

At present, pics are limited to 2,000-2,500 3D locations owing to an insufficient installed base of projectors and screens. Movie theaters are adding 3D screens at a clip of 500 a month in the U.S. Foreign exhibitors also are pushing into 3D as quickly as possible now that financing for the installations is flowing.

Also pushing the timetable is a potential breakthrough in 3D TV technology. With Samsung penetrating the market with 50,000-plus 3D-equipped sets and Sony recently sending its version to market, the home-viewing experience could be primed for 3D DVD versions of the films by the time the new 3D theatrical releases have run their course.

Lucas purportedly is lining up the theatrical rereleases as a lead-in to the ultimate home-viewing experience. Beyond that, the property would launch to other 3D media.

In the meantime, Lucas plans a comprehensive Blu-ray Disc set of the six films next year, which would include upgraded picture and sound quality, new deleted scenes and special features.

[Saulbadguy]

Originally Posted by Guru

I really hate them bringing back old films just to show them in 3d. Beauty and Beast? Lion King? Seriously? A cartoon in 3D.

3D cartoons work much, much better for me than movies. The 3D is much more pronounced and visible.

[JD10367]

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990

Yes, this please. I noticed over the weekend my local theatres trying to push everyone to a 3d theater instead of a 2D. (of course right?)

1 theater with only 1 showing each day of Journey 2 in 2D
At an early inconvient time.

2 theaters with 3D showings all day and all night long. Pissed me off.

It's risk/reward. You think theaters schedule films to piss you off and not make money? No. They schedule films because they go on attendance records and predictions. The only reason they have the 2D version of a 3D film in the first place is because people are drifting from 3D already; last year, a film like "Journey 2" would just come out in 3D-only. At least, now, they're providing a few 2D options.

[JD10367]

Originally Posted by Saulbadguy

3D cartoons work much, much better for me than movies. The 3D is much more pronounced and visible.

This. Animation is greatly suited for 3D conversion, because you can exaggerate depths and make the 3D pronounced yet not distracting. And we've never seen the 3D versions. (That last sentence is hard to explain. Let me put it this way: no matter what the Hollywood real-actor film is about, we all see real life 3D every day. But we've only seen things like "Beauty and the Beast" and "Lion King" in 2D.)

[JD10367]

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990

Are they truly giving the public what they want, since sequels, reboots, remakes, films based on books, comic books, etc.... tend to make more money with built in audience awareness.....or do audiences really crave originality?

Also, with the way theater chains have invested big time in the 3D projectors means 3D isnt going away anytime soon unfortunately.....

These two paragraphs are two different topics. I'll take them one by one.

1.) Hollywood has never been about originality. It's a moneymaking endeavor. As with most things, there are people who do it for creativity and aesthetics and people who do it for mass-marketing cash-cow purposes. Think "fancy gourmet chef vs. McDonald's". But, by and large, Hollywood is driven by money. If they can make "Alvin And The Chipmunks 5: Chip's Revenge", and make it for X dollars, and it earns X-times-five dollars, they're happy. If it costs $400M to make and is the Best Film Ever but only makes $300M, they'll never make another one.

And, the truth is, creativity doesn't make money. Here's a list of some recent, creative, praised films, and what they've grossed to date:

"Iron Lady": $23M
"Red Tails": $45M
"The Descendants": $71M
"Girl With The Dragon Tattoo": $100M
"Extremely Loud": $30M
"The Artist": $25M

All those films, total, made $304 million. And most of them are considered to have been successes, doing pretty damn good compared to their budgets and predictions. And, yet, almost all came and went in my theater quicker than I would with a naked Scarlett Johansen. Even "The Help", which made almost $170M (which is astonishing).

Meanwhile:

"Breaking Dawn": $280M
"MI4": $206M
"Sherlock Holmes 2": $185M
"Puss In Boots": $148M
"Alvin and the Chipmunks (Chipwrecked): $129M

So, "Puss In Boots" and "Chipwrecked", combined, made $277M... almost as much as all six of those creative films I mentioned.

2.) Most theater chains haven't invested that much in 3D projectors. The competing companies (Christie, Barco, Sony, NEC, etc.,.) offer trial runs, package deals, and the like. And 3D isn't much more than 2D when you're talking the amount of money being spent. And they're aware of the 3D backlash already. My theater has 16 screens. When we went digital, we started with 3 screens, and put 3D in all of them. When we converted the other 13 screens, we only put 3D in three of those. So we have 6 theaters capable of 3D and 10 that are 2D-only... and of those 6 theaters we often don't have 3D running in them. (Example: currently, "The Grey", "Woman In Black", and "Chronicle" take up 3 of our 6.)

Theater chains, like Hollywood, will go where the money (consumer spending) goes. They all hopped onboard the 3D Gravy Train and started ****ing customers with things like a 3D "upcharge", and now that the tide's turning they'll probably not suck 3D's schlong as much as they used to. Note that the biggest film of this coming summer, "The Dark Knight Rises", will not be 3D. Neither was "Breaking Dawn", or "MI4", or "Sherlock Holmes 2"... yet all were huge.

[kcfanXIII]

haven't read this whole thread, but i'll put my two cents in. i wasn't all that impressed with episode one in 3d. i think the picture quality suffered a lot, and i was stuck next to a couple of jar jar binks fans. these people would chuckle anytime jar jar started being jar jar. the pod race was pretty cool, and the ending was a high point as well, but overall it wasn't as good as i hoped.

[007]

Originally Posted by JD10367

These two paragraphs are two different topics. I'll take them one by one.

1.) Hollywood has never been about originality. It's a moneymaking endeavor. As with most things, there are people who do it for creativity and aesthetics and people who do it for mass-marketing cash-cow purposes. Think "fancy gourmet chef vs. McDonald's". But, by and large, Hollywood is driven by money. If they can make "Alvin And The Chipmunks 5: Chip's Revenge", and make it for X dollars, and it earns X-times-five dollars, they're happy. If it costs $400M to make and is the Best Film Ever but only makes $300M, they'll never make another one.

And, the truth is, creativity doesn't make money. Here's a list of some recent, creative, praised films, and what they've grossed to date:

"Iron Lady": $23M
"Red Tails": $45M
"The Descendants": $71M
"Girl With The Dragon Tattoo": $100M
"Extremely Loud": $30M
"The Artist": $25M

All those films, total, made $304 million. And most of them are considered to have been successes, doing pretty damn good compared to their budgets and predictions. And, yet, almost all came and went in my theater quicker than I would with a naked Scarlett Johansen. Even "The Help", which made almost $170M (which is astonishing).

Meanwhile:

"Breaking Dawn": $280M
"MI4": $206M
"Sherlock Holmes 2": $185M
"Puss In Boots": $148M
"Alvin and the Chipmunks (Chipwrecked): $129M

So, "Puss In Boots" and "Chipwrecked", combined, made $277M... almost as much as all six of those creative films I mentioned.

2.) Most theater chains haven't invested that much in 3D projectors. The competing companies (Christie, Barco, Sony, NEC, etc.,.) offer trial runs, package deals, and the like. And 3D isn't much more than 2D when you're talking the amount of money being spent. And they're aware of the 3D backlash already. My theater has 16 screens. When we went digital, we started with 3 screens, and put 3D in all of them. When we converted the other 13 screens, we only put 3D in three of those. So we have 6 theaters capable of 3D and 10 that are 2D-only... and of those 6 theaters we often don't have 3D running in them. (Example: currently, "The Grey", "Woman In Black", and "Chronicle" take up 3 of our 6.)

Theater chains, like Hollywood, will go where the money (consumer spending) goes. They all hopped onboard the 3D Gravy Train and started ****ing customers with things like a 3D "upcharge", and now that the tide's turning they'll probably not suck 3D's schlong as much as they used to. Note that the biggest film of this coming summer, "The Dark Knight Rises", will not be 3D. Neither was "Breaking Dawn", or "MI4", or "Sherlock Holmes 2"... yet all were huge.

Great information JD. Thank you for that.

[Deberg_1990]

Originally Posted by JD10367

These two paragraphs are two different topics. I'll take them one by one.

1.) Hollywood has never been about originality. It's a moneymaking endeavor. As with most things, there are people who do it for creativity and aesthetics and people who do it for mass-marketing cash-cow purposes. Think "fancy gourmet chef vs. McDonald's". But, by and large, Hollywood is driven by money. If they can make "Alvin And The Chipmunks 5: Chip's Revenge", and make it for X dollars, and it earns X-times-five dollars, they're happy. If it costs $400M to make and is the Best Film Ever but only makes $300M, they'll never make another one.

And, the truth is, creativity doesn't make money. Here's a list of some recent, creative, praised films, and what they've grossed to date:

"Iron Lady": $23M
"Red Tails": $45M
"The Descendants": $71M
"Girl With The Dragon Tattoo": $100M
"Extremely Loud": $30M
"The Artist": $25M

All those films, total, made $304 million. And most of them are considered to have been successes, doing pretty damn good compared to their budgets and predictions. And, yet, almost all came and went in my theater quicker than I would with a naked Scarlett Johansen. Even "The Help", which made almost $170M (which is astonishing).

Meanwhile:

"Breaking Dawn": $280M
"MI4": $206M
"Sherlock Holmes 2": $185M
"Puss In Boots": $148M
"Alvin and the Chipmunks (Chipwrecked): $129M

So, "Puss In Boots" and "Chipwrecked", combined, made $277M... almost as much as all six of those creative films I mentioned.

Well said, your 100% right.

Originally Posted by JD10367

2.) Most theater chains haven't invested that much in 3D projectors. The competing companies (Christie, Barco, Sony, NEC, etc.,.) offer trial runs, package deals, and the like. And 3D isn't much more than 2D when you're talking the amount of money being spent. And they're aware of the 3D backlash already. My theater has 16 screens. When we went digital, we started with 3 screens, and put 3D in all of them. When we converted the other 13 screens, we only put 3D in three of those. So we have 6 theaters capable of 3D and 10 that are 2D-only... and of those 6 theaters we often don't have 3D running in them. (Example: currently, "The Grey", "Woman In Black", and "Chronicle" take up 3 of our 6.)

Theater chains, like Hollywood, will go where the money (consumer spending) goes. They all hopped onboard the 3D Gravy Train and started ****ing customers with things like a 3D "upcharge", and now that the tide's turning they'll probably not suck 3D's schlong as much as they used to. Note that the biggest film of this coming summer, "The Dark Knight Rises", will not be 3D. Neither was "Breaking Dawn", or "MI4", or "Sherlock Holmes 2"... yet all were huge.

Interesting. I mentioned this earlier, but Ive noticed one of the large chains around here are starting to nearly force people into seeing a 3D screeing instead of a 2D.

They had 1 showing a day for Journey 2 and it was early in the day. Had about 12 showings a day in 3D. If they continue to do that, they wont get my business at all anymore.

[Deberg_1990]

Roger Ebert trashing the 3D process and trashing the 3D used on the new Titanic conversion. A film which he otherwise loves.


http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2012..._the_ship.html

Now for the final flaw. It is, of course, the 3D process. Cameron has justly been praised for being one of the few directors to use 3D usefully, in "Avatar." But "Titanic" was not shot for 3D, and just as you cannot gild a pig, you cannot make 2D into 3D. What you can do, and he tries to do it well, is find certain scenes that you can present as having planes of focus in foreground, middle and distance. So what? Did you miss any dimensions the first time you saw "Titanic?" No matter how long Cameron took to do it, no matter how much he spent, this is retrofitted 2D. Case closed.


But not quite. There's more to it than that. 3D causes a noticeable loss in the brightness coming from the screen. Some say as much as 20 percent. If you saw an ordinary film dimmed that much, you might complain to the management. Here you're supposed to be grateful you had the opportunity to pay a surcharge for this defacement. If you're alert to it, you'll notice that many shots and sequences in this version are not in 3D at all, but remain in 2D. If you take off your glasses, they'll pop off the screen with dramatically improved brightness. I know why the film is in 3D. It's to justify the extra charge. That's a shabby way to treat a masterpiece.

[Frazod]

I wouldn't mind seeing Kate Winslet's tits in 3D. Other than that, seriously? Titanic in 3D?

Cameron's morphing into Geoge Lucas before our eyes.

[lcarus]

Can Star Wars just please die already? I mean, I love the original trilogy, but enough is enough. Just about everything else has been crap. I'd love for them to release the original trilogy on blu-ray the way it was before he added all the new crap in.

[007]

Originally Posted by lcarus

Can Star Wars just please die already? I mean, I love the original trilogy, but enough is enough. Just about everything else has been crap. I'd love for them to release the original trilogy on blu-ray the way it was before he added all the new crap in.

Why he didn't include both versions of the film like he did with the DVDs makes no sense at all.

[Hammock Parties]

Originally Posted by Guru

Why he didn't include both versions of the film like he did with the DVDs makes no sense at all.

Because he didn't want to clean them up for the HD transfer. Takes time and money.

[Deberg_1990]

Originally Posted by Han Solo

Because he didn't want to clean them up for the HD transfer. Takes time and money.

yes because Lucas has no money.

[007]

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990

yes because Lucas has no money.

[Bowser]

Can't wait for Lucas to die so some inheritant can go against his dying wish and continue the Star Wars saga. You know, in a moving forward kind of way.