Good news . . . Monster House Schedules REAL D’s Digital 3-D Release on More Than 100 Screens.

Monster House is the Robert Zemeckis – Stephen Spielberg real 3D piece that pits four kids against a house that is determined to eat all the trick-or-treaters on Halloween.

This is the second film to use the so-called Performance Capture process of converting footagle into real 3D (the first film was the hugely successful 3D hit, The Polar Express).

Columbia Pictures’ Monster House, the second film to employ the ground-breaking "Performance Capture," innovation developed by Sony Pictures Imageworks, will be released in more than 100 theaters in REAL D’s revolutionary digital 3-D format day-and-date with its 2D national release on July 21, 2006, it was announced today by Rory Bruer, President of Domestic Distribution, Sony Pictures. The imagery for the ImageMovers/Amblin Production of Monster House is being overseen by Sony Pictures Imageworks, which also oversaw ImageMovers’ first "Performance Capture" film The Polar Express, a film that was released in IMAX 3-D with the help of Sony Pictures Imageworks. "Monster House is the perfect film for REAL D’s innovative technology," said Bruer. "It literally adds another dimension to the filmgoing experience and enhances the film’s entertainment value." "Moviegoers are clearly looking for new experiences from their local multiplex, and we are delighted to work with Sony Pictures and our exhibition partners to deliver the future of cinema," said Michael V. Lewis, Chairman, REAL D. "This partnership advances our goal of capturing a vast theatrical footprint for REAL D Cinema so that audiences worldwide can experience incredibly lifelike 3D entertainment from Columbia Pictures and our growing roster of content partners." "As a leader in visual effects and character animation, we are constantly developing new technologies to enable filmmakers to tell their stories," said Tim Sarnoff, President, Sony Pictures Imageworks. "REAL D Cinema truly enables a movie-goer to experience a film versus just watching it and we look forward to working with them on such an exciting project." "Monster House is perfect to be presented in 3D," said Steve Starkey, the film’s producer and principal in ImageMovers, "as was proved on The Polar Express. I’m thrilled that we once again have this opportunity." Monster House is an exciting and hilarious thrill-ride tale about three kids (Mitchel Musso, Sam Lerner and Spencer Locke) who must do battle with a mysterious home that is determined to eat every trick or treater in sight on Halloween. Steve Buscemi, Nick Cannon, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kevin James, Jason Lee, Catherine O’Hara, Kathleen Turner and Fred Willard are among the stars lined up for Monster House, the latest film to employ the groundbreaking technology of Performance Capture Animation, an innovative technique developed by Robert Zemeckis, Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke’s ImageMovers Company and Sony Pictures Imageworks. Monster House is the second feature-length Performance Capture film to be produced by ImageMovers. Monster House is being directed by Gil Kenan, the UCLA Spotlight Award-winning director of the live-action/animation short The Lark. The film is written by Dan Harmon & Rob Schrab and Pamela Pettler. The producers are Robert Zemeckis, Steve Starkey, Jack Rapke and Steven Spielberg. The executive producer is Jason Clark.

With a July 2006 release date, this won’t be the first of the new wave of 3D films to hit the screen, but given the legacy, it should be a powerful box office draw. Hopefully, they will be able to iron out some of the evident kinks in ther Performance Capture presentation by then (a number of ghosting effects in the version of IMAX The Polar Express we saw as well as a couple reverse-eye scenes). I am also hopeful that more systems for converting traditional film theatres to polarized presentation such as that produced by Anachrome will become more readily available to expand the 3D presentational market (see here).

See more about Real D here.

Of course, we’re really interested in seeing the film 3D wave lead into more digital sterophotography options and opportunties for home consumers as well as home film veiwing options.  Yep, that’s the ticket.  See more discussion here and my galleries here.