N Your Face: 3d Movies Making A Comeback

Why settle for just one dimension when you can have three? While the popularity of 3-D movies was written off by many to be just a craze of the 1950s, it seems to be poised to make a major comeback in the 21st century. DreamWorks Animation's Jeffery Katzenberg proclaims that 3-D movies have, "the opportunity to be the most important innovation in film since the use of color in motion pictures." Predictions are that 12 to 18 feature films will be produced in 3-D by 2010. DreamWorks will begin releasing all of its movies in 3-D starting in 2009. And while those corny glasses are still required to appreciate all of the amazing new digital technology that goes into the films, they appear to be more sleek and stylish than the earlier cardboard versions.

Gitesh Pandya, creator of the movie Web site BoxOfficeGuru.com, notes that "Studios are definitely hoping that the 3-D element will help give moviegoers a reason to leave their flat-screen TVs and go to a movie theater." The financial potential is huge for the studios. The recent release of the "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour" sold $29 million at the box office when it opened on Super Bowl weekend. Although the tickets are a little more expensive than usual, it's easy to justify $15 to enjoy a virtual concert experience than it is to resort to stunts or bankruptcy trying to land such hard-to-get concert tickets. U2 3D -- about the band - is another concert film that will be in theaters soon and should command an astounding share of movie-goers this month from its huge fan base.

So what could be better than watching the newest 3-D technology on the bigscreen? How about watching it on an 8-story-high Imax movie screen? Beowulf (Paramount Pictures and Shangri-La Entertainment) was released in November last year in standard 2-D, 3-D and the hyper-powered IMAX 3-D. The 3-D versions accounted for more than 40 percent of the film's box-office