We've had some specific theories about the big earners of this young year. "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" worked because, for all its silliness, it felt relatable to the many ticket-buyers who see movies (and were no doubt seeing that movie) in a mall. "Taken" popped because people aren't used to propulsive thrillers in the winter, and because it played on a universal fear parents have about their children (not the kidnapped by agents in Europe part, just the general notion).

"Monsters vs Aliens," the third score in the movie biz's hat trick, has its own reasons for its blowout success of $58 million this weekend (and it is a blowout — the number marks the third-highest first-quarter opening ever, behind "Ice Age: The Meltdown" and "300").

For one thing, it's the first real animated kids movie of the year, a boon to parents starved for the things ("Coraline," which still did an impressive $73 million, feels a lot more adult). It's also had a brilliant marketing campaign that, with a sharp ad and gimmick, got attention raised and parents on board as far back as the Super Bowl.

It had an insanely wide opening of 4100 screenings.

And it has genre elements that's bringing in teen and even older viewers who wouldn't be caught dead at your typical cute-animal-in-trouble animated pic.

But it's also impossible to deny that the 3D aspect was a factor in mobilizing moviegoers. Animated properties — at least non-sequel ones — historically don't get people rushing out opening weekend this time of year.

A couple of years ago, Fox's "Robots" garnered nearly $130 million in domestic box office, but only after a respectable-but-not-overwhelming $34 million opening. That picture has sci-fi elements, appeals to a slightly older audience and also opened in March, which makes it a good control experiment to "Aliens" — and which means that 3D has more than a little something to do with "Aliens" nearly doubling the "Robots" box office. No matter how you slice it, "Aliens" is the most definitive proof yet that 3D movies not only work, it's their 3D-ness that make them work.

Of course, direct comparisons between "Aliens" and past 3D pics aren't really apt, since the technology is getting better by the month, the screens are getting more prevalent and the content increasingly looks like high-end studio product instead of just a concert video using 3D to masquerade as a real feature. But as a tea leaf for future releases, it's pretty strong.

Still, there's a caveat for the Katzenbergians out there. With 3D movies increasing, box office as a whole is going to trend up, not necessarily because more people want to see them but because theaters can charge as much as $15 for a ticket instead of $10, driving up dollar totals even when attendance is flat or goes down.

That could be good for the industry. But like other inflation-driven growth, it doesn't necessarily mean the movie business as a whole is getting healthier. For that we'll need help from something technology can't solve: the movies themselves.

300 is one of those movies that is going to change the way movies are made. It will be a decade-defining blockbuster, I suspect. Who knew that Frank “Dark Knight” Miller would continue to have such an impact on pop culture? He and Robert Rodriguez turned his Sin City into a stunning digital graphic novel movie, and now Dawn of the Dead director Zack Snyder has translated Miller’s 300—about the Spartan’s Battle of Thermopylae—into a hugely entertaining movie starring the well-muscled Gerard Butler (with, from left, director Snyder and Rodrigo Santoro). Warner Bros. launched the stylized war picture out of competition Wednesday at the Berlinale; here’s Kirk Honeycutt’s review and Borys Kit’s Q & A with the filmmaker:

Filmmaker Zack Snyder is arriving in Berlin with “300,” a historical action movie about the Battle of Thermopylae based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller. Snyder is an award-winning commercial and video director who made his debut with the 2004 remake of “Dawn of the Dead,” which not only was a boxoffice hit but also was that rare horror movie to earn critical acclaim. “300″ is only Snyder’s second movie, but looking like a graphic novel come to life, it already is generating buzz for its unique style. Snyder discussed the film with The Hollywood Reporter film reporter Borys Kit.

The Hollywood Reporter: How did you get involved with “300″? Did you read the Frank Miller graphic novel?
Zach Snyder: I was familiar with the graphic novel, and a few years ago, I was in (producer) Gianni Nunnari’s office, and I saw it on his desk. And he was telling me, “We have this movie that Martin Scorsese is doing, and we have this movie …” and he said, “What are you interested in doing? What would be cool?” And I said, “That would be cool (pointing at graphic novel.) If you made ‘300′ into a movie, and specifically this shot of Leonidas getting whacked by a million arrows.” I said, “If you could make this shot real, then you’ve got, well, you’ve made something that I had never seen in a movie.”

THR: But at that point you had not even directed a movie.
Snyder: I had no track record. I was the guy who quit ‘S.W.A.T.’. That’s not a great thing to be in Hollywood.

THR: And then you made “Dawn of the Dead,” which was a hit, and then the project was finally set up at Warner Bros.
Snyder: (Warners president of production) Jeff Robinov had seen ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and for whatever reason thought it was something special. He wanted to make a movie with me. He helped shape the movie (”300″) and helped me understand that movie I wanted to make, but in the end, he wanted me to make my movie as cool as I could. And that’s hard in this town. The way the system is set up, to really cultivate a filmmaker and say, “You’re promising me you’ll make something different?” That’s a promise that every filmmaker makes, by the way. That was really cool, and I felt obligated to try to give him something else.

THR: How did you convince him that you’re making something different with “300″?
Snyder: I did a test shot. I remember we were talking, and he said, “Is there anything you could show me that would help me understand what this is?” I said, “Yeah, let me shoot something.” So I did a shot and basically it was a 360-degrees Steadicam shot of one Spartan fighting. I didn’t want to do a shot from the movie because it invites a whole series of questions like, “Is this what the actors are going to look like?” It opens up a whole can of worms. So I did an abstract action sequence, but it actually tells a story. It starts with the Warner Bros. shield, which gets stabbed, and the camera comes around and you see this Spartan fighting these Persian soldiers, kills them all, and a phalanx links up with him and we go back to reveal the entire Persian army. And they all shoot arrows. So it had the same style as the movie.

THR: How did you come up with that style?
Snyder: I had played around with it in commercials. Aesthetically, it’s what I like. What we did in the test shot, and we did this in the movie, is in the fighting. I wanted to see the actors fighting. If you look at the movie, in the beginning of Battle 1, there’s a lot of quick cutting. And in some ways I did that on purpose, to goad the audience into perceiving that that’s the way the battles were going to be photographed, in that sort of “Gladiator,” messy, you’re-not-quite-sure-what’s-happening style. And then suddenly, the movie breaks out and the language of the movie really becomes apparent when Gerry (Gerard Butler) is hacking everybody and the camera is floating. We shot that with three cameras, all right next to each other. The one center camera is flat, the wide lens camera is slightly bladed in, and the long lens is slightly bladed in. And all three were running at 150 frames. All three are basically shooting the same thing. They overlap. And in post, you end up with the ability to zoom between the different sizes and never cut. By having all three, I could choose where I wanted to be.

This is how you customize a ride, Chivo and Cuarón style. – posted by sheigh

[posted by Sheigh Crabtree] The New York Times’ John Rockwell thinks Savion Glover got short shrift on "Happy Feet" because his name is not prominently featured in the film credits nor in IMDB:

I wasn’t at the “Happy Feet” negotiating table, so I can hardly
impugn the tactics or skill of Mr. Glover and his negotiators in these
matters. Maybe they gave way on credit placement in exchange for more
money. But for an admirer of him and of tap and of dance, he seems to
have gotten a ludicrously raw deal.

Mr. Glover himself
professes total satisfaction with his credit. “My job was to be a stunt
man,” he said yesterday through a spokesman in his office. “I love
George Miller, and was happy to be a part of the film. I have no
problem at all.”

Maybe a proper credit for Mr. Glover just
slipped everybody’s minds, including Mr. Glover’s. Maybe dance, even in
a film whose entire plot hinges on dance, is so far from the concerns
of most people that Mr. Glover’s credit escaped everyone’s attention.
But that omission seems especially worrisome when the dance being
slighted is deeply rooted in the black American tradition.

[An article I wrote about Savion Glover's contributions to "Happy Feet" in the Los Angeles Times is quoted from in this story as is a similarly themed Sarah Kaufman piece in WaPo.]

What do you think? Should Glover have received better billing in "Happy Feet?" Is one more African American’s contributions to popular culture being overlooked?

Photo: Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

by Sheigh Crabtree

Adding feature films to its video download offerings, Apple began
selling digitized Walt Disney Co. movies from its iTunes store Tuesday. Here’s the print version of our story.

Red Digital Camera Footage Debuts at IBC

This tradeshow video is making the rounds among digital camera enthusiasts. The Red camera is funded and manufactured by Jim Jannard, founder of Oakley sunglasses.

Development of the Red cam has been closely watched by the cinematography community. The footage shown at IBC in Amsterdam suggests the camera system is not as far-fetched as people had previously thought. That said, the Red team didn’t seem to display test footage that was all that revealing. Camera tests that are more resolution and contrast intensive would be a good next step (i.e., sunny day exteriors and some urban night settings). Among the many folks interested in using the Red camera for motion picture production is Jim Cameron’s cinematographer/collaborator Vince Pace, who has invested a substantial amount of cash in Red’s development.

— posted by Sheigh Crabtree

The six studios and the international exhibition community have a bit of a situation on their hands. The six major studios can’t agree on the preferred digital cinema techology. No single equipment compliancy certification program exists. This
means that manufacturers will have to submit their wares for six different studio
evaluations. Once the studio evaluations are made, exhibitors will have to cull through six studio
preferences before they can decide what equipment to invest in that will play all six studios’ digital movies.

1. A de facto DCI leadership announces that each studio will publish its own list of compliant digital cinema equipment, technology (Translation: We agree to disagree, you figure it out)

2. NATO and international exhibitors respond (Translation: Six
different lists? We need an official certification program because
apparently you six can’t agree and we can’t abide by — much less afford, maintain and upgrade — six different technology scenarios)

— posted by Sheigh

Here’s a Movie Download round-up:

Wash Post on Video iPod

NYT on Amazon video downloads

• Collect those coins to cough up for downloadable movies on iTunes and Amazon. More tk 9/12.
• Sodom is for lovers: Michael Moore confronts anti-gay church with a busload full of gay guys.
• Child soldiers are scary: Magnolia Pictures’ Jesus Camp trailer is getting passed around more than a mattress on the 405. It’s the latest doc from Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, the filmmakers behind Baltimore heartbreaker The Boys of Baraka.
• Cartoonbrew teases The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3-D.
• Fametracker managed to score an exclusive interview with Nicolas Cage’s Hair. When Cage walked onstage to promote Ghost Rider at Comic-Con in July, his coif caused quite a stir in the press section.
• Feng Xiaogang’s The Banquet runs out of dim sum in Venice. Second seating scheduled for Toronto.
• The animal kingdom crowns a Great Barrier Reef sting ray its new head of state. No surprise to Trey Parker and Matt Stone who called it ages ago on South Park.
• THR reviews The Black Book | The Fountain | The Last King of Scotland | Bobby | A Few Days of September | and many more.

— posted by Sheigh

No hipster hot spot is sacred. First they parked a yellow microbus in Kitson, next they published a Black Dahlia tour map a la 1947project, and today it seems they’ve got their hooks into Threadless.

Studio movie marketing departments continue to annex niche blogs and local trend spots in desperate pursuit of early word of mouth and a chattering class of fans to do the heavy lifting for them.

In recent days we’ve covered Fox Searchlight’s promotional t-shirt tie-in for "Little Miss Sunshine" at L.A.’s Kitson boutique. Later we did a rambler on Universal’s "Black Dahlia" promotional tie-ins with 1947Project and LATimes.

Today brings word of a DreamWorks’ Threadless t-shirt contest for "The Last Kiss" spearheaded by none other than the movie’s star Zach Braff. The actor has in the past worn Threadless tees on FOX’s "Scrubs."

In a cool CG tool article, Barbara Robertson talks to ILM’s Steve
Sullivan about Zviz, Lucasfilm’s new pre-visualization tool. It’s got
animation, shooting and editing modes, and I want it for Christmas,
Santa!

Apparently, Mr. Lucas told his R&D team that he wanted a new pre-viz system easy enough to use that a director could block out shots, while sitting on the couch, watching TV. This made us wonder aloud what George was watching when he pre-viz’d AOTC and ROS… (We got one vote for E!’s The Girls Next Door).

[posted by Sheigh]

Instead of buying YouTube, which would have been more expensive, Sony has acquired a smaller site, Grouper.

YouTube is trying out ways of monetizing its enormous traffic, reports the LAT:

After attracting millions of eyeballs with video clips of dancing cats and lip-syncing coeds, YouTube hopes to cash in on its popularity with online infomercials.

Starting today, the video-sharing site plans to let advertisers create “channels” filled with clips they produce themselves — and then in turn sell sponsorships to other advertisers.

[YouTube CEO Chad Hurley]