In the two weeks since it launched, Gravity, the sci-fi spectacular starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, has made $191m (£119m) at the box office.
But it’s not just the size of the receipts that has surprised movie experts – it’s the fact that 80 per cent of the audience are prepared to pay a premium of between $3 and $5 to watch the film in 3D. To put that in context, it is a higher proportion than for Life of Pi or even Avatar, the film that broke all box office records in 2009 and was supposed to herald the coming of 3D as a mass-market phenomenon.
Indeed, before Gravity’s eye-popping numbers were revealed, many critics had been talking about the death of 3D. For Ryan Gilbey of the New Statesman, the technology has a fundamental problem it can never overcome – the need to wear glasses. “3D puts a barrier between us and the screen. You need to be immersed in a film to truly enjoy it and all of a sudden you have equipment that prevents that,” he said.
But a rival technology has emerged that could change all that. The X, the first film to use Screen X technology, was unveiled last week at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea. Screen X presents viewers with a 270-degree field of vision that creates an immersive experience without the need to wear 3D glasses. It even solves the widescreen problem that has hindered the format since 3D first appeared in 1915.
