The pileup was created in part because studios want to capture some of the excitement surrounding "Avatar," the James Cameron epic released in December. At $2.4 billion in global ticket sales, it is the highest-grossing film ever. In addition to the novelty or richer experience that might drive more people to see a 3-D movie, tickets to 3-D movies also cost a few dollars more.
Around the time "Avatar" came out, Warner Bros. decided to convert a remake of "Clash of the Titans" from 2-D to 3-D and push its release back a week, to April 2.
That will be the third 3-D movie to hit the market in a short span. DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc.'s "How to Train Your Dragon" comes out a week earlier, and The Walt Disney Co.'s "Alice in Wonderland" hits theaters March 5. And "Avatar" might still be playing in some places too.
But a limited number of theaters can show these movies in 3-D, because not all theater owners have bought new digital projectors and undertaken other upgrades necessary to show movies in the format. About 3,900 to 4,000 3-D-ready screens are expected to be available in the U.S. and Canada by the end of March. Typically a movie in wide release might be shown on 3,000 to 10,000 screens in North America.
In the past, a smaller number of 3-D-capable screens was adequate when one major film at a time was being released in 3-D in addition to 2-D. Each movie had a longer run, and moviegoers who wanted to see it in 3-D could pick a convenient time to go.
With three out at once, each will get less exposure because some theaters with only one or two 3-D screens will have to choose which movies to show in 3-D.
"One or all three are going to suffer in some way," said Patrick Corcoran, director of media and research for the National Association of Theatre Owners. "It makes it a much harder decision on exhibitors on what to keep or what to drop or what to add and probably should have been avoided."
Cached
fishead ...*∞º˙ on 31 Dec 09"It was 1993 and I had just decided to drop out of college. I was a graphic design major in a great art school but decided I want to start my second company. Knowing this would mark the conclusion of my studies there I set out to create my final project. I would write a short story, design and produce it in print. I put out an edition of 300 and gave it to my friends and people who inspired me like author William Gibson. Cut to November, 2009, when I returned from sitting on a panel at the second Realtime CrunchUp. I had urged the audience and participants that when thinking about the realtime web we should not consider the challenge through the lens of how consumers behave today. I argued that the future potential of the realtime web is not in the misnomer "realtime search," as the consumption of this signal will predominantly be in what I call ambient streams. These are streams of information bubbling up in realtime, which seek us out, surround us, and inform us. They are like a fireplace bathing us in ambient infoheat. I believe that users will not go to a page and type in a search in a search box. Rather the information will appear to them in an ambient way on a range of devices and through different experiences. A few days after I got back from the CrunchUp, I was organizing some old documents when I stumbled on I Was Just Dead< , a cyberpunk short story I wrote 16 years ago. A story about a world of augmented reality. A world where at birth a chip is embedded in people's brains creating a reality where they no longer discern what is "real" and what is augmented in their surroundings (Hear the audio-book or download the free eBook below). It was strange to hear my former self calling out about the importance of augmented reality from across the span of almost two decades of experiences in the digital world, half of which were spent solving the problem of how to filter the massive realtime stream."
