Stop Paramount from delaying and converting G.I. Joe Retaliation

I thought the film industry’s infat­u­a­tion with 3D was tem­po­rary. But it hardly seems like they’re slow­ing pro­duc­tion on converting movies to 3-D, 3D as a whole affects even the best films in a bad way, it is an imped­i­ment to qual­ity film­mak­ing. It com­pro­mises much of the art of film.

Bright­ness, con­trast, image qual­ity, depth of field are all sac­ri­ficed to accom­mo­date a gimmick. Plus movie theaters often give 3-D better treatment, usually offering 3-D versions of films two screens, while the 2-D version only get one screen.

The latest casualty of this 3-D trend is G.I. Joe Retaliation, it was originally scheduled to be released on June 29th, but Paramount abruptly decided to delay it's release until March 2013 to convert it to 3-D, citing focus groups asking why the film wasn't in stereo. But it's clear the real reason for Paramounts sudden decision is due to the lackluster performance of Battleship at the box-office and wanting to stretch out consumers pockets more to maximize they're profits.

This decision is a bad idea for many reasons, first off, 3-D showings usually take in less revenue compared to 2-D ones, even for a hugely successful film like Deathly Hallows part 2, 3-D showings accounted for less then half of the film's profits(48% to be precise), films like The Avengers are the exception and not the rule.

Delaying Retaliation and giving it an unnecessary conversion will most likely cause it to lose more money then it will gain. Not only will fans be turned off by the 3-D conversion, releasing the film in March next year would be even worse then releasing it a week before Amazing Spider Man, by next year, the excitement for the film will have died down, and the poor performance of John Carter earlier this year proved that March is not a good time to release a film intended for the blockbuster season.

All of these things combined will pretty much guarantee Retaliation will flop, and even if it is a success in spite of all this, the money it makes more then likely won't be enough to offset the costs of conversion. Bottom line, the film has more to lose then to gain with the delay. Hasbro will also be affected, as the tie-ie merchandise for the film was scheduled months in advance, the sudden delay will likely end up costing Hasbro quite a bit of money, they won't take this snap decision lightly and neither should you.