Sony has announced that their reboot of the Spider-Man franchise is joining the 3D bandwagon and will be released in the format when the summer of 2012 rolls around. This will be the first time that helmer Marc Webb has shot in the format.
Yet another announcement that a film is going to be in 3D is starting to get me to wonder if audiences aren’t going to be sick of 3D anytime soon? The 3D boom of the 50s only lasted three years, as did the revival of the format in the 80s. While the quality of many of the features from those two cycles could be argued as the cause for the public becoming disenchanted with the 3D process, I would counter that very few directors today are doing anything better with the technique than has been done before.
Of course studios like 3D films for a number of reasons. The first is that they really can’t be pirated. The studios love that the overlapping screen image as seen without the 3D glasses can’t be effectively captured by a video camera snuck into a theater. The second is that they can add a couple of extra bucks to the price of a ticket to cover the expense of handing you a pair of cheap plastic glasses that probably only cost a few cents to manufacture. There is definitely price-gouging going on at the box office. And you don’t get a break on your ticket price if you bring your own glasses, either. (I’ve tried.) Three-D is definitely an excuse for the studios to pick your pocket. Thirdly, everyone else is doing it. Combine all these and shake well, and you’ve got a cocktail that is going to fuel some drunken decisions for some time to come.
Groan. I have to issue a caveat here, I don’t like 3-D. I always get either a headache or a faint bit of queasiness when I watch it and, being that I wear eyeglasses, wearing the 3-D glasses is a logistical impossibility. That being said, I don’t see how making the next Spider-Man film be in 3-D would actually make it better. Is the fad that popular that it will make up for the uncertainty of it being a reboot? Yes, the web-swinging in the film makes it a logical choice for 3-D, but what about the scenes when Peter… Read more »