3D Vision Blog

The big success that the re-release in movie theaters of Disney’s classic animation The Lion King in 3D (converted from the 2D original to 3D), about 80 million USD in the US box office so far, the company appears to have decided to have more of its classic animations converted to 3D for the big screen as well. Disney has announced that the following titles from Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios will be released converted in 3D in 2012 and 2013:

- Beauty and the Beast – January 13, 2012
- Finding Nemo – September 14, 2012
- Monsters, Inc. – January 18, 2013 (Monsters University, a prequel to the original film, arrives in theaters in Disney Digital 3D on June 21, 2013)
- The Little Mermaid – September 13, 2013

Now if this is a good move or not is still yet to be seen, but there will be a lot of controversy surrounding these releases as they will be 2D to 3D conversions. Disney’s decision is apparently driven by the good profit that they have realized with the Lion King 3D conversion, but it is still unclear if other of their classic and more recent animations will also manage to attract so much attention. Starting today The Lion King is already available on Blu-ray 3D and the same goest for the movie Beauty and the Beast also already converted and available on Blu-ray 3D media. And since the 3D conversion for the Beauty and the Beast is already ready the January 13th release date for the big screen shouldn’t be a problem. There is also quite some time until September next year for a proper conversion of Finding Nemo, so Disney is apparently not rushing things just to make some quick profit, but should instead take their time to do good conversion to 3D. I’ve already seen the 3D conversion of the Lion King and Beauty and the Beast and can say that is was done quite well, although far from perfect, and without major issues to bother the normal viewer. I’ve watched both movies converted in 3D and will watch the other conversions from Disney as well even if it is just out of curiosity, would you?

Disney’s The Lion King 3D is going to be hitting 3D movie theaters on September 16th for two weeks, but the release will be available in limited number of 3D cinemas. So if you are unable to watch the new 3D version of the popular animation, you will be able to get in on Blu-ray 3D starting October 4th. The original Lion King was released in 1994 and instantly became big hit, making it one of Disney’s most popular animations and probably the one bringing in some of the highest profits, so it is no wonder that the company has decided to revive the movie in 3D. As you can guess it is a conversion from the original movie into a 3D one, so it is essentially a 2D to 3D conversion like most new movies we see in 3D nowadays. But unlike new movies that can be shot now in 3D instead of 2D and then converted to 3D, with a older classic movie you are only able to convert it to 3D if you want to bring it “back to life”… or do a remake in 3D, but that will be a process requiring a lot more time and resources.

You can say that Disney is checking the interest of the audience to see if people are going to be willing to watch an older classic animated movie on the big screen in 3D, so if The Lion King 3D turns out to be a success they may as well bring more of their popular classic animations converted into 3D. And this movie has all the chances to do it, if the conversion is really well done and the result is as convincing as if the movie was originally intended to be made in 3D format. And we have all the chances to get exactly that considering that the conversion was led by Robert Neuman as a stereographer who already has experience with making quite a few stereoscopic 3D animated movies. According to the information available the conversion of The Lion King took about 4 months to complete by a team of over 60 people, so we should be getting a high-quality 3D conversion.

Due to the fact that the movie is a hand-drawn type of animation and not computer generated 3D animation, as most recent 3D movies are made, I’m expecting that the conversion to 3D will not be that perfect. Even just considering the fact the movie has not been planned for a 3D version when was originally made and that makes some scenes harder for planning an realizing the level of depth, so that there won’t be any objects violating the stereoscopic window for example (cut by the sides or the top of the frame while at the same time they produce the feeling of jumping out of the screen). Hopefully there will be just minor issues with that of smaller objects, so that they won’t be bothersome for the audience, as you cannot just go for adding depth to the movie, you also need some things to pop-out at times for the best user experience.

Of course when having an animated movie you don’t need to add 3D to make it more realistic, after all animations do rely on stylization of the characters and scenes in order to better convey the desired emotions. Don’t forget that animations are mostly intended for younger audience and thus the extra stereoscopic 3D features in the movie should have the main goal of putting the viewer deeper into the story displayed on the screen and helping better translate the ideas of the authors of the movie. Hopefully this was done well enough in The Lion King 3D, so that instead of being WOWed by the 3D effects in the movie you will kind of forget all about the movie being a 3D one, as all your attention would be focused on the world of Simba and the adventure that lies in front of him.

Unfortunately The Lion King 3D movie won’t be hitting the movie theaters nowhere near where I live, so I’ll be waiting for the Blu-ray 3D version to become available in order to get it and watch the movie.

- You can already pre-order The Lion King 3D movie on Blu-ray 3D…

The new Alice in Wonderland movie, featuring Johnny Depp, that officially premiered in 2D and 3D on 5th has managed to generate around $116 million in the North American weekend boxoffice for just 3 days. Just as a reminder James Cameron’s Avatar has opened with a $77 million weekend last December, so Alice in Wonderland clearly topped that, but will it manage to reach Avatar’s $2.6 billion gross worldwide… I seriously doubt that. The movie Alice in Wonderland has managed to take another $94 million internationally in its opening weekend, generating about $210 million in total which is a very good start, but it will most likely remain with a good start only and the interest will quickly diminish…

Avatar is still in the top 5 (number five actually) in the North American weekend boxoffice charts for the last weekend and this was its 12th week already, but still managing to make a little over $8 million. As for Alice in Wonderland I suppose that the interest will be big only in the first 3-4 weeks maximum, but then again the interest here might not be coming from the movie being converted to 3D (it was shot in 2D) and also screened in 3D cinemas as most people suspect. Without a doubt one for the reasons for the big interest is Johnny Depp and him making another great role as the Mad Hatter. But I don’t see a lot of people going to watch the movie more than once in 3D or because of Johnny Depp, unlike what happened with Avatar – people going two, three or even more times to watch it. And Avatar has opened the doors for everything 3D (not only movies) as now everyone is talking about 3D becoming available to the masses, so you can say that Alice in Wonderland had the right timing, but that might simply not be enough. The Monday boxoffice results (day 4) kind of show this negative trend as Alice in Wonderland managed to make just about $9 million in North America compared to over $16 million for Avatar in its day 4 (first Monday). The drop from Sunday’s results is over 3 times for Alice in Wonderland compared to less than 50% for the same time frame with Avatar…

Anyway, enough with the speculations, lets see how things work out for Alice in Wonderland and meanwhile if you’ve watched the movie in 3D please share your thoughts in the comments below. Did you find the 3D effects impressive enough and comfortable to watch or got your eyes quickly tired or maybe got a headache? How would you compare Alice in Wonderland in 3D to Avatar in 3D? And just about any other comment you find interesting to share with other people interested in stereo 3D.

- If you are interested in the 2D to 3D process used for Alice in Wonderland…