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Cash of the Titans
The rush to 3-D began in earnest early last year, with much tub-thumping about how A-list directors like Steven Spielberg and James Cameron were testing the format. The box office verified that interest: four of the top dozen domestic hits of 2009 were shown in 3-D. Three were animated features: Up, Monsters vs Aliens and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. The fourth film: Avatar. James Cameron's eco-epic, which quickly became the No. 1 moneymaker in movie history, proved a couple of things about 3-D. In the right hands, the technology was an amazingly supple tool, allowing film people to create worlds that were both fantastic and convincing. And it lured audiences with the notion of a special experience, a true movie "event."
Oh, one other item: Avatar demonstrated that 3-D could bring studios gigantic bundles of cash. For ages, the rule of movie exhibition has been that customers pay the same price for a movie that cost $250 million to make (say, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) as for one that cost $15,000 (Paranormal Activity). But 3-D changes all that. You can charge audiences the moon to see a 3-D movie, and if you show it, they will come. The extra cost of making a movie in the format, or of jerry-building 3-D effects on a picture shot in the standard two dimensions, is perhaps 10% to 20% of the budget. A ticket for How to Train Your Dragon costs $12.50 in 2-D at a Manhattan movie house. For 3-D, it's $17.50 a 40% surcharge. For the 3-D IMAX version, $19.50, or 56% higher. The better news for studios: many of the Friday and Saturday screenings are already sold out.
The best news, for studios and exhibitors: the prices keep rising. This weekend, according to a study by BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield that was reported in the L.A. Times, U.S. ticket prices for 3-D films will be hiked an average 8%, IMAX prices will balloon 10% for adults and 12% for children, and 2-D tickets will cost 4% more for adults and 3% more for kids. A 3-D IMAX movie night for a family of four, with tickets ordered over an Internet site like Fandango that charges a booking fee, can run from $60 to $75 before the family even gets to the concession stand. For all of this, you can thank Cameron and Tim Burton, who directed Alice in Wonderland, not to mention the mass audience's compulsion to see the big new movies in the big hot format.
"Avatar was a game changer," says Bock, "but so was Alice in Wonderland. People were expecting it to do $65 [million] to $70 million [its first weekend], but then it goes and does $116 million, which is something almost unseen outside a traditional Hollywood blockbuster. So now that's something that every studio has to consider: How can you find the right window to match that sort of performance? It's a change in paradigm. You not only have to look at your weekend, but you have to look at surrounding weekends, because you need control of the most 3-D screens." Alice in Wonderland, Bock notes, opened on a weekend with little new competition and, except for Avatar, no other 3-D movie around. "So now the focus is, We've gotta make sure we get 3,500 screens for two or three weeks straight."