I was not very good at math in school but the current situation in which 3D is widely reported to be dwindling as a percentage of a movie’s overall gross seems like a pretty simple equation that appears to be lost on much of the mainstream and industry media.
First of all, we know there are a limited number of 3D screens. For the sake of keeping the math simple, let’s say there are 1,000 3D screens. When a 3D movie gets released – call it 3Da – it may make as much as 80% of its overall gross from those 1,000 3D theaters showing the movie at a premium price.
But what happens when movie 3Db gets released while 3Da is still in theaters? If they split the 1,000 theaters evenly, each film has access to only 500 screens and therefore only 50% of the potential 3D gross. Keep extrapolating as three, four, five, or even eight or nine 3D movies are in the market at the same time, as is the case right now. Each of those movies is splitting the same 1,000 screens, with movie 3Di getting access to as few as 50 – 100 theaters, or only 5%-10% of the potential 3D market.
Exacerbating the situation is the IMAX 3D factor. IMAX can represent as much as 10% of a movie’s overall gross. There are even fewer IMAX 3D screens and only one movie is playing in IMAX theaters at a time, meaning as much as 10% of 3D revenue is not even available to the other five movies in the market at the moment.
Given that formula, it’s mathematically impossible for two, three, and especially eight or nine movies in the market simultaneously to each generate 60% – 80% of their overall gross from 3D. Of course the 3D percentage from each film must inevitably get smaller with the addition of each new 3D film into the market.
Further, every week crappy movies are released. The more movies that use 3D, the greater the odds that there will be a higher percentage of bad 3D movies, just as there are bad 2D movies. Yet, I’ve never seen anyone draw the mathematical conclusion that the disappointing openings of films like “One Day, ” “The Change-Up” and “Cowboys and Aliens” is dragging down the percentage of grosses of 2D movies which means that audiences are less interested in seeing 2D movies.
It would be a delightful surprise if, at some point, hopefully soon, the media who report these numbers could grasp and accurately interpret these grosses before drawing and promulgating erroneous conclusions.
By Scott Hettrick
Thank you! Great little article. Short, simple, and to the point. Pretty sad this needs to be pointed out to media journalists. This summer has packed in so many 3D movies, some better than others, but it’s looking like this is going to be an extremely good year for 3D movies.