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...they and the studios still feel the shortage. This weekend there will be an unprecedented 3-D-theater traffic jam as Clash of the Titans joins last week's box-office champ How to Train Your Dragon and the Disney blockbuster Alice in Wonderland. That could make this the first weekend in movie history when the top three pictures at the domestic box office are shown in 3-D - except there aren't enough venues with suitable screens for the three movies. (See the best movies of the decade...
...might have been expected to earn about $100 million this weekend - if it had secured all the 3-D screens it needed, which Warner Bros. could have done if it had released the film in mid-April, when Alice and Dragon would have run their course, and before the first expected smash of the summer season, Iron Man 2. But Warner decided on Easter weekend, and the swamis are now predicting a take of $70 million for Clash's opening three days. "Warner Bros.' decision doesn't make a lot of sense," Bock observes. "You don't see many other...
...Avatar was a game changer," says Bock, "but so was Alice in Wonderland. People were expecting it to do $65 [million] to $70 million [its first weekend], but then it goes and does $116 million, which is something almost unseen outside a traditional Hollywood blockbuster. So now that's something that every studio has to consider: How can you find the right window to match that sort of performance? It's a change in paradigm. You not only have to look at your weekend, but you have to look at surrounding weekends, because you need control of the most...
...diagnose these complaints. First, the 3-D makeover. Yes, it is nothing but Warner Bros.' scheme to fleece an extra $3 or $4 from the moviegoer's pocket. Yes, the retrofit adds nothing to Clash of the Titans, and may detract from the film's old-fashioned vigor, as audience's wait in vain for some big monsters-in-your-lap moment. (And it's rated PG-13 - unlike 300, its recent ancestor in the antique-Greek action genre - so the hacked-off-arm opportunities are also limited.) But at least this transfer to 3-D doesn't substantially darken...
...Second, on remaking an old favorite. I'll tell you why the middle-aged critical Cassandras remember the 1981 version as a movie milestone: because when they first saw it, they were 11. Not that it didn't boast its antique charms, mostly in Harryhausen's nifty-creaky beasties, but these scenes consume perhaps 15 mins. of a two-hr. movie. The rest is a botch, as storytelling or spectacle. First we're up on Olympus in the company of some swank Brit actors - Laurence Olivier as Zeus, Claire Bloom as Hera, Maggie Smith as Thetis - whose contempt...