Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

One of the coolest demos I’ve ever seen for anything regarding exhibition was the 3D digital demo I was shown at Lightstorm a few years ago. They showed me several different pieces of films, some shot in 3D, some retrofitted for it, and it all sort of knocked my socks off.

There was a clip from THE TWO TOWERS where Sam and Frodo were walking around Gollum, interacting with him, and it really sold the illusion. I believed that they were sharing space with this third character, that he was real. And the best moments I was shown were more about drawing you into the screen than things popping out.

Sounds like Memorial Day weekend of 2009 is rapidly turning into the date where we’re going to see just how many 3D films the marketplace can bear, as both Dreamworks and Fox have stepped up to try and claim the weekend as their own. One of these projects is about as presold as any film can be, James Cameron’s AVATAR. The other is a giant question mark with a really blunt title.

Check this out for what few details there are at the moment:

”Both 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. have chosen that date to release what each hopes will be its first 3-D blockbuster. DreamWorks' MONSTERS VS ALIENS will be up against a potentially scarier creature: AVATAR, a science-fiction thriller from James Cameron, the director of Hollywood's biggest blockbuster, TITANIC.

The nation's largest exhibitors, however, say they won't have room for both. As many as 5,000 screens are expected to be equipped to show 3-D movies by 2009, up from 700 today. But DreamWorks and Fox each want all of them. DreamWorks Animation Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, who has been campaigning to get theater operators to accelerate the conversion to 3-D, has told people that he needs 6,000 screens for MONSTERS VS. ALIENS.

You can read the rest of the story right here.