Digital cinema dispute in 3D
FROM VARIETY: Studios, theater owners told to settle fee issues
By David Cohen of Variety -- Video Business, 4/14/2008
APRIL 14 | FROM VARIETY: NATO prexy John Fithian warned Sunday that the cinema industry is headed for "a potential train wreck" over 3D if studios and theater owners do not settle their dispute over digital cinema fees in short order. And he noted that while heavyweights such as Jeffrey Katzenberg and James Cameron were early and ardent supporters of digital, key helmers like Steven Spielberg remain on the fence.Fithian, in his keynote address to the Digital Cinema Summit at NAB in Las Vegas, noted that there are 10 major studio 3D releases skedded for 2009, including DreamWorks Animation's Monsters vs. Aliens and Fox's Cameron opus Avatar, but "we don't have the screens for them. We have less than 1,000 3D screens in the U.S. and fewer than that in the rest of the world."
Yet negotiations between the studios and theater owners are at something of an impasse, said Fithian, as studios try to reduce the Virtual Print Fee that helps defray exhibitors' costs to install digital cinema systems.
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