LOS ANGELES, July 21 (UPI) -- Hollywood is turning to 50-year-old technology to keep theaters packed, releasing big budget movies in 3-D.
Columbia Pictures' new animated film "Monster House" opened in 3-D on Friday. It's just the latest in a string of films to use the technology that was once dismissed as a gimmick and is now used to heighten realism and add a bit of thrill to feature films, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.
Filmmakers say the technology brings a new dimension to the big screen, literally, accentuating the possessed "Monster House" or adding more realism to scenes in "Superman Returns."
Film companies now see 3-D as a way to keep people coming to the theater instead of watching movies at home on big screen TVs.
"With rising production costs and especially marketing costs from the studios, we needed a way to help 'eventize' our most important productions," said Dan Fellman, president of domestic distribution at Warner Bros. Pictures.
