Monday June 14, 2010 – Stewart Wolpin
If I were a geek or a nerd (and I'm both), I would be selling my blood and other bodily fluids, cashing in every bit of loose change around the house and maxing out my weary credit cards to get myself a 3D HDTV and a 3D Blu-ray player so I could drool overAvatar at home on 3D Blu-ray. And I'll bet millions of other blue-painted geeks and nerds would be tramping down to Best Buy and other big box retailers to do the same.
One problem. There's no 3D Blu-ray version of Avatar. And from a marketing point of view, I can't for the life of me figure out why.
Panasonic has been flaunting its relationship with James Cameron for nearly two years. At the 2009 and 2010 CES, Panasonic played video of Cameron extolling the virtues of 3D and how he valued his relationship with the company. Observers would have bet their farms (okay, I would have bet my farm, if I owned one) that Panasonic would start selling its 3D Blu-ray and 3D HDTVs to coincide with the home video release of the 3D Blu-ray of Avatar.
But sans a 3D Blu-ray Avatar, I'm guessing no one will sell as many 3D HDTVs or 3D Blu-ray decks this year as they could have.
It's hard to fault Fox Home Video for holding back a 3D version of Avatar. The 2D version sold 6.7 million units in its first four days of release, 2.7 million on Blu-ray, both records, and both versions remain among the top five sellers six weeks after its April 22 release. And Fox seems quite satisfied with this bounteously blue status quo. In fact, it'll dip a second time when it releases a special edition DVD and Blu-ray in November. A 3D version, which can now stand for the growing infamous home video third dip, hasn't even been scheduled and likely won't be out until sometime next year.
But this long-term thinking is paradoxically short-sighted. Avatar is the 3D killer app and could create a market for triple dips for all of Fox's other titles. Authoring tools can create 3D versions of nearly any film, much like colorization (I'm not saying they should, I'm just saying they could), plus you immediately open a fertile home market for all the current 3D films about to be released theatrically.
Instead, by waiting until 2011 for a 3D Blu-ray Avatar, Fox pushes back 3D Blu-ray sales potential not only for themselves but other suddenly 3D-happy studios and hardware makers, and leaves us Na'vi lovers disconnected from the 3D Tree of Souls. Well done, Fox!
It's clear Panasonic doesn't quite have the Unobtanium, metaphorically speaking, to get Fox to release a 3D version ofAvatar to support the 3D hardware launch. One reason I've heard for Fox's delay is that 3D authoring tools aren't up to snuff. I find that hard to believe. First, earlier this year Cameron was quoted as saying he believed a 3D Blu-ray version would be out in the fall. He must have felt it was totally doable, but was quickly contradicted by the suits at Fox. Second, it's hard to believe Cameron and crew are picker than Pixar, which already has released Up on 3D Blu-ray.
More likely, Fox is being conservative (what a shock), waiting for a critical mass of 3D HDTVs and 3D Blu-ray players to be sold in order to ensure the 3D Avatar makes as big a noise as the 2D versions, or at least doesn't land with a dull sales thud. But this creates the old chicken-egg game of chicken that hardware makers and content providers have been playing since the VCR first came out in 1976. You put out hardware first. No, you put out content first. Hardware first. Content first.
Ironically, Fox was the first studio to support home video in 1977 when it released 50 titles on tape, leading off withM*A*S*H. In fact, about a year later, Fox bought the duplication company, Magnetic Video, as the foundation to create Fox Home Video and helped launch the home video revolution.
Like the fictional RDA Corporation in Avatar didn't remember the sins of their forefathers in their rape-of-the-land encounters with indigenous peoples, apparently the folks at Fox have forgotten how they once helped create a new profit center for hardware makers, themselves and the other studios.
In the meantime, geeks and nerds like us will be blue until we can get blue in 3D next year.
