Looks Like 3-D Trend Is Over At Box Office
'Apes' finishes behind 'The Help,' but all 3-D films falter
You have to say one thing about the new "Conan: The Barbarian" film. It finished just ahead of what the original Arnold Schwarzenegger one did. That is, if you don't adjust for inflation.
The project, starring "Game of Thrones" and "Stargate: Atlantis" alum Jason Momoa, bombed at the box office. It earned $10 million in its opening weekend, finishing well behind the rest of the pack, including "Spy Kids: All the Time in the World." And the top two films -- although they were not new films -- were two of the few that were not in 3-D.
The original Schwarzenegger film grossed $9.6 million in 1982, according to Entertainment Weekly. But that's in 1982 dollars. Adjusted for inflation, the original "Conan" earned $22.5 million, meaning the new film didn't even come close to living up to the original.
No budget was released for "Conan," but it was expected to have cost as much as $80 million for Lionsgate to make. It's doubtful this "Conan" will live up to that budget, and that there will be any further films in this franchise for Momoa.
"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" fell out of its No. 1 spot after two weeks, this time to "The Help" -- which it narrowly beat last week -- but is still extremely strong at the box office. "Apes" earned $16.3 million over the weekend, a drop of just 41 percent, according to The Numbers. It has now earned $133.8 million on the year, and is pacing well ahead of another popular genre Twentieth Century Fox film "X-Men: First Class."
"Fright Night," the horror remake that features "Doctor Who" alum David Tennant, also didn't do too well. It earned $8.3 million, despite its attachment to 3-D. That's not a terrible thing for Walt Disney Pictures, however. That film cost just $18 million to make, so it should make back its budget easily during its domestic run.
This is not the first week this year where 3-D was clobbered at the box office. It has been happening a lot. In fact, the only films that have powered the box office in 3-D are ones that were expected to make a lot of money anyway -- "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1." But even those films did poorly on the 3-D side.
Fox decided to not go 3-D with "Apes," even though it had hired the same special effects people from "Avatar" -- which helped ignite the current 3-D craze -- to do the effects for the new movie.
Will this stop studios from making more 3-D films in the future? Probably not in the near-term. But the more audiences begin to reject 3-D films, the less likely we'll see them in the future.
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by amorris | Mon, 08/22/2011 - 05:04 #1
I, for one, will be glad when we go back to movies being primarily in 2D. Movies don't have to look like real life. Part of the point of them is that they don't look like real life. I saw the Conan movie in the 3D format only because there were no showings of the 2D version when I could get to them. Three D doesn't work for me. My vision problems include my eyes not working together. I basically see things only with one eye at a time. So, I have to wear the glasses for the movie but they don't work. This is actually annoying and I'd rather see films in 2D if possible. When I saw the new "Fright Night," I saw it in 2D.
I could go one here but I think I'll keep the rest of my thoughts on this subject to myself till it's column time and then, I'll spew them forth in The Fannish Life--shameless plug.
by serton | Tue, 08/23/2011 - 05:21 #2
It could just be that films like Conan just aren't that good rather than the trend for 3D films is over. More analysis is required before we can confirm the trend is over or even faltering rather than just having a bad week due to poor word of mouth over the films. Also something I've noticed re the 3D films is the simple fact that being in 3d makes them duller and darker that tends to make films look slightly unappealing. Not something I enjoy when I go to the cinema