Avatar Creating Bottleneck at 3D Screens

The success of Avatar is creating a first-of-its-kind problem in movie land: a potential bottleneck of films for 3D screens. The problem will come to a head March 5, when Disney releases Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Imax theaters and other operators of 3D screens agreed long ago to show the Disney flick, but nobody at the time figured that Avatar would remain such a cash cow for so long, reports the New York Times.

Execs at 20th Century Fox are especially antsy about losing the traditional post-Oscar bounce for Avatar and may try to work out deals with 3D theater owners to keep their film in place. Some kind of compromise is likely—for example, allowing Avatar to run midnight shows on Imax screens even during the opening run of Alice. But with about 60 3D films scheduled to come out over the next 3 years, expect the problem to get worse.
(More Avatar (film) stories.)