Theater Backlash In Progress-Boycott Called For Alice In Wonderland 3D

This is a bit of a shocker that I picked up over on, of all places, a movie news site.  Remember when I talked about how Disney wanted theaters to shorten their release window for Alice in Wonderland, so they could get it on DVD, Blu-ray and streaming faster for us in the home theater market?

Well, this is a new twist, and it’s downright amazing.

Over on Cinema Blend, a website devoted to movie news, they’re calling for a boycott of Alice in Wonderland 3D.  They see it as the beginning of the end for 2D movies, and they’ve got a good point.  Right now, studios are looking at Avatar as a fluke.  A one in a million lucky shot golden BB that managed to land in just the right place at just the right time by just the right director with just the right script.  But if Alice in Wonderland 3D has a good run at the theaters, says Cinema Blend, studios will start to make the connection.  And what that means is that more theaters will put in 3D screens, and thus will begin the phasing out of 2D movies altogether.

After all, why bother showing a 2D film when you can show a 3D film and charge three, four bucks more per ticket?  This is a question a coalition of theaters–AMC, Cinemark and Rival–have already asked, and have thus banded together to take their case to JP Morgan Chase to get financing to put in 3D equipment.

If the putsch toward 3D grows, then we–the home theater folks–may have a bit of a problem on our hands.  All our equipment is in 2D, and we can’t go to JP Morgan Chase for a loan to upgrade.

Maybe this is overstating things…but maybe we should be looking at this too.