The record-breaking box office success of James Cameron's Avatar appeared to herald the arrival of 3D as a permanent fixture in multiplexes. With $2.7 billion in the coffers worldwide for Avatar, and Cameron cheerleading the format, the likes of Alice in Wonderland, Toy Story 3 and Tron: Legacy delivered strong numbers to cement 3D back into the mainstream.
Is audience enthusiasm for the format evaporated completely, though? The likes of Clash of the Titans and The Last Airbender tested cinemagoers' patience - delivering mediocre 3D post-conversions at an elevated ticket price. Now, the format appears to be waning at the box office. In recent weeks, more US movie fans have opted to fork out for 2D screenings of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Kung Fu Panda 2 than their 3D counterparts.
DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg described the 3D decline as "heartbreaking" to The Hollywood Reporter. The producer, whose last five DreamWorks animated releases have all debuted on 3D screens, theorised that "genuine distrust" had emerged between the paying public and Hollywood after a string of movies that "seriously undermined" the 3D experience.
"It's really heartbreaking to see what has been the single greatest opportunity that has happened to the film business in over a decade being harmed," Katzenberg said. "The audience has spoken, and they have spoken really loudly."
Katzenberg's sentiments about the financial knock to 3D box office receipts are shared by Digital Spy forum member Glawstar2002, who writes in a thread discussing the pros and cons of the format: "There is nothing wrong with 3D per se, Avatar being a perfect example of how jaw-dropping the technology can be, but due to its success there have been a whole raft of sub-standard films that simply have the effect of driving people away from the technology."
The increase in ticket prices for 3D has put off UK reader F1etch, who says: "I refuse to pay the inflated price of almost £3 on a normal 2D screening and too many movies are not shot in 3D but stuck through a machine and released as a poor man's 3D which just ruins the feel of it all."
An adult ticket to see Kung Fu Panda 2 at Leicester Square's Vue cinema, for example, is priced at close to £17 - more than the cost of a DVD and about the same as a Blu-ray disc.
Bad1609 believes that despite apparent audience apathy, 3D will be sticking around. "Perhaps not always at the cinema, but with 3D channels and 3D-capable games consoles and 3D Blu-ray players... just because it died a death in the anaglyphic era of 3D, doesn't mean it will again," they said.
This summer still has big 3D releases in the form of Ryan Reynolds's superhero epic Green Lantern, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 and Transformers: Dark of the Moon (the only title of the three to be shot in native 3D), so the real test of endurance for the technology may still lie ahead.
As an intriguing aside - and perhaps a sign of the studios' need to alter audience perceptions about the format - journalists who were recently invited to a preview screening of Transformers footage were asked to make the movie's 3D action sequence the focus of their pieces.
So, what do you think? Are you happy to pay the extra price or do you still prefer watching movies in 2D?
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