'Airbender,' 'Green Hornet' Undergo 3-D Conversions

Two new entries in the 3-D upconversion market: The Last Airbender and The Green Hornet. One's a summer movie that ought to sell lots of kiddie tickets and I have no idea what the other one's supposed to be. But at an extra $3 a ticket, the studios believer, why not try? Deadline announced the moves, which aren't exactly surprising at this stage of the game. But it does seem like a movie that goes the conversion route might be trying to make up for a deficiency somewhere else, doesn't it? Clash of the Titans just isn't very good, the 3-D didn't make it any better, but it did add the alluring possibility that you'd see something that 2-D would otherwise miss, and that would make the ticket worth the extra 30%. We now know it wasn't, but Warner Bros. isn't lamenting it, and has more cash to show for the move. There are differences between real 3-D and this post-production variety, primarily the artistic decisions made by the director when he or she shot the film. Did Night Shyamalan plan for Airbender to do things visually that were not really in his control? I doubt it. There's the chance that the more conversions we see, the better it will get, but I haven't been completely sold on any of them, even for great films like Up. In the sense that it's no better in 3-D, it might actually be a better experience in 2-D when all is said and done. Green Hornet is a different matter. Because so much has gone haywire with that production, the 3-D - an added $10, $12, $15 million or so - is allowing Sony to move it out of 2010 completely. Yeah, even though Titans' 3-D work took less than two months to complete, Sony is pushing the film back three weeks. Keep in mind, we've still got about eight months before it was supposed to be released. Is this a strange move? Not to me. Here's what I wrote in August of last year:

"(Y)ou might come to the conclusion - as I have - that this is just not going to be salvaged very easily, and moving it to December 2010 gives the studio the chance to push it back three or four more weeks, perhaps into Sony's Paul Blart slot in January 2011. At least there it has a chance to make some money by default."

Where did Sony move it? Into its Paul Blart slot of January 14, 2011. Your witness, counselor. The 3-D is a convenient scapegoat, and given that Hornet will, in fact, stand a better chance at making some money in January than over the holidays, the money the studio is throwing at this "enhancement," as it's being called, will at worst be a wash. The process comes just as the film enters its post-production phase, so it's not exactly the same thing as Warner Bros. looking at a completed Clash of the Titans and throwing the whole movie in a magic machine that turned it 3-D. The studio's Jeff Blake tells Deadline, "We're going to finish Green Hornet in 3-D and take nine months to do it right." But why does it take nine months? Who's advising Sony that eight months just isn't enough time? Why does it take exactly three weeks longer than it would to hit your (third) release date? I don't think that's on the level, especially since so many industry rumors are swirling about how bad the movie is. "It is purely a capacity issue," Blake said of the move. "There simply are not enough digital screens up and running within the theater system to juggle that number of [3-D] titles." Well if that's the case, why spend millions on a movie coming out a mere three weeks later, one that will now compete directly with the 3-D Cabin in the Woods, vying for a similar demographic, as well as (for the time being) the 3-D Priest (distributed by Sony subsidiary Screen Gems)? It's not like Hornet will suddenly find itself with unlimited room to breathe. And if How to Train Your Dragon is an indicator, at least one of those December 3-D movies will still be pretty dangerous in mid-January. Point blank: The studio is trying to dump the film without it looking like nobody has any confidence in it. If it's otherwise, spend seven months on the 3-D and let the film compete on a fairly light November 12th or finish the conversion in eight months and open on a completely wide open December 3rd.

Comments

[MM]

Sony moved Priest to March.

[Lance St. Laurent]

I'm fairly certain that Up was shot in 3D, not converted

[Honz Brix]

I think since Up was an animated movie it was not shot in 3D at all. I don't think animated characters are running around auditioning for roles in 3D movies. Since it is animated i believe the 3D was all done with CG. I don't believe it was motion capture or anything to do with live action actors. I may be wrong because i am not entirely sure of the process but i think an animated movie in 3D is not filmed like a live action film in 3D, please coorect me if i'm wrong. Up just was not good in 3D. It did nothing for the movie, it was the same movie in 2D. All they did was make more money off the people who saw it in 3D when it looked the exact same in both versions