Comments on: Sony to Stop Covering the Cost of 3-D Glasses in 2012

By: Matt Gamble

Matt Gamble — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 22:21:39 +0000

Different surcharges would be dependent on the agreements negotiated with the studios and the format providers. That being said individual theatre chains could still choose to set it higher and attempt to make a profit, though the studios would frown on that heavily and in turn demand a portion of that revenue.

Theatres don’t make money on 3D surcharges, they help cover the cost of 3D print rental, licensing and rental fees, recycling fees, shipping costs and whatever else the studio and format provider feel like tacking on. Though it should be noted in the interest of fairness that the studios for a time did help pay for digital and 3D upgrades to projectors nationwide, but that stopped several years ago. Now theatres (primarily independently owned) have to foot that bill as well with studios now threatening to discontinue analog prints within the next couple of years.

By: Ovenball

Ovenball — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 19:00:25 +0000

I pay a fee to the format provider and a % of ticket revenue to the studio, but I do not pay a flat rate to these groups equal to the 3D surcharge. I still see a portion of that revenue.

By: Sean

Sean — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:02:58 +0000

Really? But how does that make any sense, especially since different theatres have different surcharges?

By: Matt Gamble

Matt Gamble — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 05:06:32 +0000

Partly to make up for all the money that theatre owners had to put out to upgrade their systems. But mostly it’s just because they think they can.

Theatres don’t get the money from the 3D surcharge. The studios and the format provider (IMAX, RealD, Dolby 3D) split it.

By: RC

RC — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 22:40:27 +0000

Do they have 3D contact lenses?

By: PlanBFromOuterSpace

PlanBFromOuterSpace — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 19:38:15 +0000

On a somewhat related note, I know that until very recently I still had my “Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare” 3D glasses that were put out by New Line in 1991. If I remember correctly, there was an ad for “House Party 2″ printed on the inside.

By: Ovenball

Ovenball — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 19:30:30 +0000

There’s also the promotional RealD glasses like the ones issued for Harry Potter and The Lion King. I’m pretty sure some of those customers would have payed $100 for a pair of Harry Potter RealD glasses. Maybe this is an untapped revenue stream.

They need to release Risky Business in 3D and sell special Tom Cruise shades.

By: PlanBFromOuterSpace

PlanBFromOuterSpace — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 19:02:41 +0000

Theaters that didn’t already have digital projection had to upgrade to digital to be able to project 3D films. My theater has 10 auditoriums, and we just finally got digital equipment in 3 of them last year (we got a 4th this last spring). That stuff’s expensive, and it doesn’t pay for itself, right? If 3D goes away for a while, we at least have better projectors, so jumping on the bandwagon a little late isn’t a complete loss.

The big problem we HAVE had with 3D so far is that only our largest theaters have been converted to digital. This was a big problem over the holidays when our most popular films were True Grit and Little Fockers, because Tron, Narnia, and Yogi Bear had a lock on the biggest theaters, but didn’t need the space. When everything was just film, we had the freedom to put movies wherever we wanted, but in this case, True Grit could only be played in our 4th largest auditorium and was selling out regularly while Tron played to maybe 30 people. A lot of 3D films or just regular movies that we get digital prints of are dead on arrival (Alpha and Omega anyone?), and it doesn’t hurt us most of the time to not be able to just throw it in the smallest theater possible, but until we’re ALL digital, scheduling is always going to be more trouble than it needs to be.

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:57:58 +0000

Partly to make up for all the money that theatre owners had to put out to upgrade their systems. But mostly it’s just because they think they can.

By: Niklas

Niklas — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:41:21 +0000

why exactly are 3D movies more expensive? I thought it was to cover the glasses but I guess that was never the case

By: PlanBFromOuterSpace

PlanBFromOuterSpace — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 17:51:12 +0000

I’m a manager at a theater that uses the RealD system, and if Sony is going to stop footing the bill, I’m guessing that the outcome isn’t going to be as dramatic as some people are making it out to be, like charging fees on top of fees. As it stands right now, we have boxes and boxes of glasses that we haven’t really needed between the lackluster performance of 3D movies lately (movies like Conan and Fright/Shark Night doing badly that no one wanted to see, period, 3D or not) and just a lack of Fall 3D films in general. If Sony stops paying for the glasses themselves, I’m guessing that maybe the cost of admission will go up slightly (which is bound to happen from time to time anyway), but we won’t start charging for glasses. They’ll probably become items that we have to track in our inventory every day like most concession items, where we keep track of what we go through from week to week and re-order accordingly, rather than have boxes and boxes of them stockpiled, because right now I think we just get them when we get them, whether we request them or not. I could be wrong, as I typically don’t handle the ordering of those things. We’d probably become more involved in the recycling program ourselves (as far as the theater chain goes) and stress even more heavily to the customers to drop the glasses off in the boxes after their film or hold on to them for their next visit.

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 17:09:38 +0000

The article specifically refers to RealD glasses as being the ones that Sony won’t pay for. You’d think the recycling program would help cut back costs for these things but I guess a lot of consumers probably keep the glasses as well. Maybe we should all start stocking up anyway.