Roger Ebert, whose writing has been absolutely on fire these past few years, has weighed in on Hollywood’s infatuation with 3-D films, giving it a big thumbs down.
The distractions that 3-D movies demand of its audience are obvious to anyone who has had to endure wearing a pair of those goofy glasses—and that will play a large part in this being fad that falls out of fashion just as surely as it has before. But Ebert touches on another important point: great films…great and successful films…have found their audience just fine over the years without 3-D, and it’s hard to imagine how any of them would be improved via this newest tech obsession.
The lesson here is this: you can dress up a mediocre product with gimmicks and while it may initially attract a little attention, soon people will tire of it.
The way to reach an audience and to get them coming back for more is by telling a great story—or in the case of studio executives, by having an eye for a good story when it hits the desk.
It’s that simple. And that hard.
