This week, Disney announced that Marvel’s The Avengers will be screened in 3D as well as 2D when it opens this May. The announcement seemed oddly timed, given that the movie has been shooting since April, and it usually doesn’t take this long for a multi-national corporation to decide it wants to make more money. That means the movie will be converted to 3D in post (post-converted 3D), and everyone promises the post-converted 3D won’t be as crappy as it was in Clash of the Titans. Slashfilm points out that Joss Whedon actually shot the end-credit scene for Thor in 3D, and decided he didn’t want to deal with all the 3D rig’s extra equipment. Whedon spoke to JoBlo about it, presumably while they tried not to stare at his enormous forehead:
“there definitely are movies that shouldn’t be in 3D” while assuring fanboys “THE AVENGERS isn’t obnoxiously 3D.”
“There’s no, ‘Oh look, we’re going to spend 20 minutes going through this tunnel because it’s in 3D!’ And no one is pointing at the screen the entire time. But it’s an action movie. Things tend to hurtle toward the screen anyway.”
Whedon says he was 100% behind the [3D] idea. “Yeah, it’s fun!…I’m not a big fan of extreme long lens, talky movies – I like to see the space I’m in and relate to it, so 3D kinda fits my aesthetic anyway. And the technology has advanced so far in the past couple years.”
Call me crazy, but it seems to me that if you’re still trying to get people to buy into this 3D upsell in the midst of obvious signs of decline, you’d want to put its best foot forward. In Slate’s report on the health of 3D back in September, for example, they reported that 3D screenings for Captain America (also post-converted) were making one-third of the money that 2D screenings earned. At least if you’re going to make it in 3D (Editor’s Note: please don’t make it in 3D), shoot it in 3D. But who knows, maybe the technology has come a long way, and this time it’s going to be different, and blah blah blah, maybe it won’t be as underwhelming as pretty much every other 3D movie I’ve ever seen. 3D! The Future is Meh!
Though as long as we’re post-converting to 3D, how bout doing those Scarlett Johansson cell phone pics? I’m tired of mashing my face against the screen to see inside of her butt crack.