James Delahunty
15 Apr 2010 20:02
Ahead of the May 21 release of "Shrek Forever After", Dreamworks Animation has confirmed that it is planning to convert the older Shrek titles to 3D for release on Blu-ray. "Our movies exist in digital files to begin with. To go back and rebuild to a quality 3D experience is not inexpensive, but we are about to achieve a pretty high quality result," company CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg said Wednesday.
Speaking at the National Association of Broadcasters convention, he was optimistic about the rate of innovation in 3D filmmaking. "We are just beginning to see big capital investments made into the area of post 2D-to-3D conversion. Right now it's at the most rudimentary," he said.
The recent release of "Clash of the Titans" has received much scrutiny, prompting some concerns within the industry that poor 3D releases will threaten the rollout of the "format". Concerns aside, Katzenberg feels comfortable enough with 3D to be optimistic about its potential with older titles.
"It is going to change very, very quickly. I'm still pretty optimistic that whether it's 12 months or 18 months or 24 months from now, there is going to be a quality product in straight 2D-to-3D conversion," he said.
He suggested that the conversion, done properly, will cost about $20 million and may take up to 18 months to complete for each film. With George Lucas hoping to do the same with Star Wars and James Cameron aiming to convert Titanic, some movie fans might be concerned about what the conversion might mean for classic films in the near future.
"They are not going to do anything to diminish the importance of those films," Katzenberg said.