Film executives scoff at notion of “3D fatigue”

By Carl DiOrio

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – The sky isn’t falling, but ticket sales for 3D movies may be finding their natural water level.

That, in an extra-dimensional nutshell, is how studio executives feel about recent signs that the ratio of 3D-to-2D grosses for pictures has settled into a range just below that marked by early 3D releases when the format was a consumer novelty. They scoff at the notion of “3D fatigue” floated in a spate of media reports while acknowledging pricing may have outpaced demand for some family pictures.

Some reports first took note of the situation when Disney’s “Toy Story 3” — which has quickly rung up $635 million at the worldwide box office — opened last month with a studio-estimated 60% 3D contribution. Just a few months earlier, Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland” and DreamWorks Animation’s “How to Train Your Dragon” had rung up a lustier two-thirds of their box office in 3D auditoriums.

“‘Toy Story 3’ may gross up to $400 million domestically,” a top distribution executive at a rival studio noted. “To suggest anything is wrong with that makes no sense.”

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