Filed under: Consumer experience, General Electric (GE), Time Warner (TWX), Walt Disney (DIS), Viacom (VIA), Sony Corp ADR (SNE), News Corp’B’ (NWS)
So here’s the deal — home theater systems are so popular these days that some perceive them as a threat to the movie business. But DreamWorks Animation (NYSE: DWA) CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg thinks digital 3-D is going to bring people back into theaters in a big way, judging by comments he made in Las Vegas at ShoWest. Katzenberg believes that current 3-D technologies are as revolutionary a technology as color television was when it first came onto the scene. He could be right.
Studios like Disney (NYSE: DIS), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), Viacom (NYSE: VIA), Sony (NYSE: SNE) and General Electric’s (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal are certainly hoping he’s right. As I mentioned recently, the actual number of tickets sold in theaters last year was pretty flat. So they want to do everything they can to get people excited about leaving their homes and justifying spending a ton of money on tickets and concession items (heck, in my local mall multiplex, a bottle of Dasani water sets me back well over three bucks!).
I don’t think Katzenberg is overstating the issue, but it will take a lot of investment and effort by movie studios to ensure that the public really gets the value of the 3-D experience; some effective marketing campaigns will be in order. I should point out that I haven’t seen a 3-D movie since the bygone days of my youth — yes, I was there for Jaws 3-D and the great Friday the 13th Part III in 3-D, the latter of which was the first Friday to feature Jason con hockey mask — and, to be honest, I don’t relish going to one now. I’m not crazy about wearing glasses for my moviegoing experience. Nevertheless, I probably am unique, and I think once theaters are converted to a critical-mass point for digital 3-D, the movie industry will be better for it. And DreamWorks Animation will certainly attract a bigger audience to its cartoons when 3-D becomes ubiquitous.
Disclosure: Steven Mallas owns shares of Disney and General Electric; positions can change at any time.
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