Sorry, I can't accept that.

The 90s was the decade that people went to see movies for special effects. Jurassic Park and Independence Day made national magazine covers and were "event" films. The former butchered Crichton's book, the latter was an absolute bore-fest (I fell asleep seeing it opening night). Then you've got other movies that had other things going for them like Toy Story (a decent film) and The Mask (Jim Carrey) were CGI was a big, big draw.

Note that none of these movies were based on a successful existing franchise like Transformers.

The point is, in the 90s, movies could get away with the FX being the main draw. That's no longer the case and, if anything, it is expected that a movie has great FX.

I can't recall of any recent movie, aside from Avatar, that got people into theaters based on CGI alone.

I don't think people went to JURASSIC PARK or ID4 for the CGI. Both were big summer blockbuster event movies. People were going to see them anyway, CGI or otherwise. And JURASSIC PARK was already based on a huge bestseller and had Spielberg's name attached, which meant epic win to begin with.

And TOY STORY made its mega multimillions not from the novelty of CG-animation, but from its story and characters. Otherwise, DINOSAUR would have been a massive blockbuster. And THE MASK was all because of Jim Carrey's appeal (this was in THE hottest period of his career, mid 90s), rather than the effects.

People are dumber and less-descriminating than ever. Paul Blart: Mall Cop was a MASSIVE ginormous hit. I'd weep for humanity, but I have lunch arriving now.

This is what I've been sayin'!

And in the 1980s, we got this:



Other than conceding that animators favor CGI to traditional animation, what's your point?

Jurassic Park had a ton of buzz, because it combined Spielberg and dinosaurs, and readers of the source material had very high hopes. That said, I don't think it'd be too hard to find references to the CGI in any article written about the movie at the time.

But you're flat out wrong about Independence Day. No one paid to see that because they were excited to see Bill Pullman be the President. They went because they were promised an alien invasion/disaster movie with amazing effects--generated on computers.

Audiences came to Toy Story for the novelty of its CGI nature, and because it opened in late November (always a good time for "family" films). It won them over with its charm and appealing characters, but no one outside of Pixar could have expected audiences to respond the way they did to the movie...because they had to see the movie to respond to it. I know my friends and I saw it on opening night out of curiosity, and went back the following Friday to see it because we loved it the first time.

Oh, come now. Paul Blart: Mall Cop had the benefit of opening in a practically dead January with virtually no new comedic competition. I can't explain his appeal, but people seem to like Kevin James. Christmas wasn't terribly good for a lot of families a few weeks before and with the bills coming in from that dismal month, people were desperate for a laugh of any kind. Swap its release date with Observe and Report, and Paul Blart is the forgotten movie about a mall cop that year and Seth Rogen has the hit.

More importantly, it's a cop-out to claim that this is some kind of intellectual "dark age." Every era has its moments of greatness and its failures. But the trend in general is that each era evolves from its predecessor's successes. This isn't just true of film, but of humanity in general. No, things aren't terribly bright for most folks right now. But we've got a lot more going for us early in this century than any generation alive at the dawn of any earlier century. For instance, we're able to sit inside air conditioned buildings and commune about something as unimportant as whether or not CGI or 3D "improve" films or not via the Internet.

This is a chicken-and-dinosaur egg problem. They were events because of the CGI. When someone says "I want to see this movie for the effects" that is what it means. In the mid-90's, blockbusters had great CGI special effects (for the time). That was a rarity.

Now, it's normal to have great special effects. It is expected. Now the CGI effects are only an issue if they are bad. Bad CGI is now the rarity.

When something becomes very common (good CGI), then it becomes an expectation. Good CGI is now an expectation, not the main driver for a film.

CGI is never "the" reason to see a movie. Even in the 90's, it wasn't. But it was a HUGE reason to go.

Independence Day and Jurassic Park both got Newsweek covers the week they were released.

Did Inception?

That the 1987 Chipmunk Adventure straight-to-home-video movie didn't take in over $200million at the domestic box office? That it's blazing success didn't lead to Raja Gosnell's upcoming SMURFS abomination? That you could serve up any old crap to the American public and they'll willingly line up to lick the plate? I could keep going....

When did I say that?

Newsflash: people were lining up for big-budget disaster movies with amazing effects LONG before CGI became the norm.

Which proves my point. Some people may have seen it for the curiosity factor (mostly geeks, nerds, genre types). It made its mega blockbuster status DESPITE its CG Animation, not BECAUSE of it.

Never said that we are currently in an intellectual "dark age". I'm saying we have ALWAYS been in an intellectual "dark age". People aren't more sophisticated now, they aren't more demanding now, and they haven't elevated their standards. They want the same old dopey shit they've always had. AVATAR is dopey as hell; exquisitely filmed and beautiful to look at, but dopey, predictable, cliched, insipid, a retreated of every trope we've come to know and gotten sick of time and time again.

How old are you?

It had a theatrical release. And the reason it didn't take in $200 million is that it was released in an era when mainstream audiences had a hard time paying to see "cartoons" in a theater. That paradigm has shifted, thanks in large part to the proliferation of CGI-driven movies.

Of course they were. But the appeal of Independence Day was that its CGI effects gave it a scale beyond any previous disaster movie.


We're in agreement here about the result, but not the cause. Audiences went to see Toy Story because of its CGI novelty. They went back, and told people to go see it, because it was actually a great film. But they wouldn't have known any of that had they not been lured by the CGI.

I do apologize. I should have made it clear that the words I placed in quotations were for effect, not because they were your words.

As for Avatar, which I've still not seen, I can honestly say that this is the first I've heard anyone characterize it as "dopey shit" (this time, those are your words!).

Really? Come on, you're better than this.

And those movies, like the let's-go-see-this-newfangled-CGI movies, are from a specific era.

3D at the Box Office: Down, Down, Down

A lot of the ID4 effects, such as the White House blowing up, was miniatures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indepen...%29#Production
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116629/trivia

One thing to remember is that obsessive internet movie nerds represent a TINY FRACTION of the movie-going public. We know all about special effects, directors, budgets, trends, studio shenanigans, etc. that normal everday people don't give two shits about. CGI? Models? Animation? Script rewrites? Pre-production histories? They don't give a shit. The director is a legendary cocksman who created hip, existential dialogue for crappy WB vampire shows? Irrelevant. They follow "whatever looks neato". It's always been this way. Always will. The cult of personality extends to celebrities/actors/stars only. Everything else is doo-doo.

I don't think anyone went to Independence Day because of the "CGI" - they went because of that shot of the White House exploding. Basically, they just went for the effects, no matter how they did it.

Yeah you're not gonna see a bunch of obese Middle-American Wal-Mart soccer Moms chatting excitedly about cutting-edge CGI or what Christopher Nolan's next project is going to be or how far the Wachowskis have fallen, etc.

You can almost taste the fear in that article.

As has already been discussed (I think in another thread, but still), looking at the numbers presented in that article in a vacuum proves nothing, other than the apparent bias of the author. For example, if the number of feature-length films released in 3D quadruples, but the number of screens that are 3D-ready only increases by 25-50%, then the per-film revenue percentage that comes from 3D will obviously be lower. However, that in no way implies that the "fad" is dying.

The only indicator that is meaningful is how many 3D-ready auditoriums exist today versus a year ago, and how much money are those auditoriums making from 3D ticket sales versus a year ago (or perhaps more accurately, how many 3D tickets are being sold in those auditoriums versus a year ago). I don't know the answer to that question, but I suspect that it would surprise many of the posters in this thread.

Suppose Fox went and released "Marmaduke 2: IN 3-D!!!" The film would flop spectacularly. Would that mean 3D was a failing fad? Or just that 3D attached to a failure of a film does nothing to enhance its box office?

The author of that article would have you think the former.

Excellent point. Unfortunately, too many producers seem to be of the mindset right now that attaching 3D to a crappy project will enhance its box office take. But that is a completely different discussion, and one that has nothing to do with validating the success or failure of 3D itself.

Not every movie needs CGI and not every movie needs to be in 3D. When it is a good fit, 3D is great, but when it is not needed it's a wasted add on. I love 3D but I don't want everything to be in that format. It wouldn't be special anymore. It's already lost its luster from the higher than average 3D releases of late. If I saw a one or two movies a year in 3D, that would be more than enough for me. 3D will always be a gimmic otherwise there would be no point to it. Stuff busting out of the screen and landscapes with great depth is awesome, anything else is a waste for the effect. I loved Toy Story 3, perhaps my favorite movie this year. I didn't like the 3D as it didn't add anything in my opinion. The trailer for Indepicable Me was more fun in this process. I'm sure I won't like IM as much as TS3, but the 3D in IM makes me want to see it. TS3 didn't need 3D to get me to buy a ticket. And with that said, I ran out and saw TS3 and still haven't caught IM.

It sure looks like the amount of money being made by 3D is on the decline, according to that chart, as Alice In Wonderland made over $80 million, Toy Story 3 with $66 million, but Despicable Me just over $25 million and the latest, Cats & Dogs only $6.9 million.

Did you even read what I wrote? Apparently not, so repeating it would be pointless.

But the one thing I will add is that you don't seem to be willing to actually even look at the numbers in the chart you yourself posted. Dollars don't mean anything. Even in that myopic chart, dollars don't mean anything. Hint: look at percentages. Comparing the DOLLAR figures for a movie that has been out for 7 weeks against one that has been out for 7 DAYS is, well, weird.

The chart's only comparing opening weekends, not total gross.

Almost all the films on that chart got over half of its opening gross from 3D. And as has been pointed out before, the main reason Despicable Me had a comparably low percentage of its gross from 3D was because The Last Airbender was released the week before and still taking up a lot of 3D theaters.

3D viewership may or may not be on the decline, but those charts don't prove anything.

Those figures are for the OPENING WEEKEND ONLY, so you clearly did not read that post very well. The excitement to see films in 3D on their opening weekend, which is the most important time for a movie now, is going down, for whatever reason.

No, that is not clear at all from that chart, as Jay G and I have been trying to say. All that is clear is that cherry-picked data can be skewed to say whatever someone with an agenda wants it to say.

So enlighten me. What does that data mean?