3D all the rage at ShoWest

By Sarah Sluis

FJI Executive Editor Kevin Lally reports on movie highlights at the annual ShoWest Convention in Las Vegas.

The $59.3 million opening weekend for DreamWorks Animation's Monsters vs. Aliens was a timely prelude to the 3D programming that dominated the second day of ShoWest, the convention for the movie theatre business now taking place in Las Vegas. As if engaging in a game of one-upmanship with DreamWorks Animation head Jeffrey Katzenberg and his fervent campaign to get cinemas on the 3D bandwagon, Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Group President Mark Zoradi hosted a nearly two-hour program highlighting Disney's ambitious slate of 17 3D films coming up in the next three years.

Zoradi revealed that the reconfigured 3D Toy Story and Toy Story 2 will debut as a double feature in a two-week limited engagement in October, whetting the public's appetite for Pixar's all-new 3D Toy Story 3 on June 18, 2010.

Meanwhile, Cars 2 in 3D will be preceded by a series of 3D shorts dubbed "Cars Toons." ShoWest delegates got an exclusive look at one such short, "Tokyo Mater," a fantasy in which the countrified tow truck voiced by Larry the Cable Guy finds himself competing in a manic Tokyo drift race. It's fun to see the familiar Cars characters in a sleek, glittery Tokyo setting�an opportunity for director John Lasseter (and Pixar head honcho) to show his well-documented love for Japanese animation.

The Vegas audience also got to preview the opening sequence of Disney's 1991 classic Beauty and the Beast repurposed for 3D. It was a refreshing reminder of the charms of hand-drawn animation, here surprisingly smoothly adapted to the 3D medium, and the particular delights of the only animated feature ever nominated for Best Picture. I can't wait to see the whole movie in this new guise.

Disney is also reviving a property that laid some of the groundwork for today's computer animation�the experimental 1982 cult feature Tron, which placed live actors in a surreal game-racing environment. Zoradi showed a test sequence for the 21st-century Tron which showed lots of exciting potential, complete with the welcome return of the original movie's star, Jeff Bridges.

Zoradi also made note (without screening actual footage) of two upcoming 3D projects from major directors: Robert Zemeckis' motion-capture A Christmas Carol, with Jim Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge and all three of his ghostly intruders, and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which will combine live-action, motion-capture and CGI. Alice will also open on IMAX 3D screens.

The second half of the Disney program was a screening of the first 47 minutes of Pixar's first 3D feature, Up, which was recently chosen as the first animated and first 3D film to open the Cannes Film Festival. Director Pete Docter, of Monsters, Inc. fame, was on hand to enthusiastically introduce his handiwork. ShoWest forbids advance reviews of its screenings, but I think I can safely say this project is as original as we've come to expect from Pixar, and absolutely wonderful. In fact, I dare say the first ten minutes, which show the life story of the old man at the center of the tale, is as artful and poignant as any live-action sequence you'll see this year.

Docter noted that the Pixar folks consider all their films to be in 3D, but "we've just never showed them to you in stereo."

The Disney program went so long, lunch at the show was unusually late. But first, before we could eat, hosts Sony Pictures and RealD somewhat cruelly showed us two sequences from Sony's 3D adaptation of the popular children's book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, in which a young scientist's experiment results in food raining down from the sky. The 3D effects looked great�particularly the meatballs plopping in the foreground�and kids should, please pardon the pun, eat it up.

Overgrown kids of all ages, particularly unrepentant frat-boy types, will love The Hangover, which director Todd Phillips of Old School and Road Trip fame previewed during the part of the morning session conducted by Warner Bros. Entertainment president and COO Alan Horn. Judging by its wild and funny trailer, this comedy about a bachelor party run amok is destined to be one of the surefire hits of the summer. Horn also brought on the energetic McG to show an extended trailer for his Terminator Salvation, which looks like an action bull's-eye, and the ever-wry Robert Downey, Jr. to tout the cheeky, big-budget, action-oriented approach to his next starring vehicle, Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes.

From the glimpses gained on ShoWest Day Two, it looks like the momentum of the movies in 2009 will be continuing for months to come.