Is 3D on Its Way Out?

Sony has said they will quit supplying 3D glasses for their movies starting in May of 2012 and the other American feature film studios are expected to jump in and side with them. They say they are spending 5 to 10 million dollars pre feature film release on the glasses and want the theatres to pay for the glasses by charging the ticket holders and extra fee for the glasses to see the films.

There is no talk about the film producers of lowering their price to show their films just that they aren't going to pay for the glasses anymore. Unless I missed the memo I don't recall the American public or the theatre owners beating the doors down at the studios to make them make 3D features. Nor was there a demand for television manufactures to produce 3D sets.

What happened was that the studios and the set manufacturers let the genie out of the bottle and the genie is not going back in. People either hate 3D or they love it, but enough do love it that the theater owners retooled their theaters to show 3D projects.

Companies were created to supply the bits and pieces that are needed to make 3D features. Unknown amounts of people were put to work setting 3D into motion.

Last year we found out that 3D fell out of favor with the set manufacturers because people were unwilling to fork over a hundred dollars per set of glasses to see what was being shown or what little of it that was available to be seen. The glasses were looked as a means to increase the profits for the companies that made the sets instead of just using passive glasses that were much cheaper.

Because the sets weren't selling few major suppliers of material for television were willing to churn out the amount of programing that was needed to justify the costs of the sets.

Now we find out that the studios aren't making enough on the 3D films they are turning out and want the public to pick up the costs of the glasses so the bottom line is better. Costs on a 3D feature are what you make out of them.

You can make good 3D films and spend hundreds of millions or spend little. You can make bad 3D features and spend hundreds of millions are spend little to make them. Same can be said about 2D features; you can spend a lot or a little and make either good or bad feature films.

The genie they let out of the bottle now is extremely popular all over the world besides the United States. The main difference between theatres in the United States and those in others countries is that there is a more symbiotic relationship in countries with motion picture producers then there is in the United States.

By court order nearly 60 years ago the film studios were made to stop their symbiotic relationship with theatres in the United States because of price fixing. Today the studios are dealing with theatres that are independent from them.

There are millions of television sets being turned out for China and hundreds of stations capable of showing product made on them. Feature films on the epic side are being turned out in Asia for the 3D screens that are being set up. Cell phones, computers, home projection systems are being turned out for the consumers that want 3D all over the world.

Possibly in an economy that is booming you might be able to hit the consumer up for more money to see a 3D film but that economy does not exist today and may not for some time. The foreign market for all that the studios production is now where the big bucks are coming from not from the United States.

If the American film studios decide to pull the plug on 3D is almost a 100 percent certainly that because of the popularity of 3D outside the United States that production companies outside of this nation will pick up the pace of supplying product. If they insist on killing 3D in the United States then you can look forward to the 3D product to be made elsewhere else just like everything else is today and brought into the country to be shown on our screens.

Will the studios be foolish enough to gamble they can get Americans to pay more to see feature films?

Answer: we are the only country in the world that if you can't sell a product raise the price on it and wonder why no one will buy it.