See also: Gulliver's Travels. Domestically a bomb with 42 million on a 112 million budget. Worldwide? 230 million, and not such a bomb anymore...

See also: Gulliver's Travels. Domestically a bomb with 42 million on a 112 million budget. Worldwide? 230 million, and not such a bomb anymore...

It made 4 million from Hong Kong alone. What a fucking travesty. It actually beat out Iron Man 2.

A walk through the AMC Loews Boston Common on Tremont Street one evening in mid-April illustrates the problem: gloomy, underlit images on eight of the multiplex’s 19 screens (theaters 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, and 18, to be specific). These are the auditoriums using new digital projectors that are transforming the movie exhibition business, machines that entirely do away with celluloid. The “film’’ comes in the form of a software file, and the projector pumps it onto the screen at high intensity.

Why, then, do so many of the movies look so terrible?

This particular night “Limitless,’’ “Win Win,’’ and “Source Code’’ all seemed strikingly dim and drained of colors. “Jane Eyre,’’ a film shot using candles and other available light, appeared to be playing in a crypt. A visit to the Regal Fenway two weeks later turned up similar issues: “Water for Elephants’’ and “Madea’s Big Happy Family’’ were playing in brightly lit 35mm prints and, across the hall, in drastically darker digital versions.

The difference can be extreme. Chapin Cutler, a cofounder of the high-end specialty projection company Boston Light & Sound, estimates that a film projected through a Sony with the 3-D lens in place and other adjustments not made can be as much as 85 percent darker than a properly projected film.

That’s dark enough for Hollywood director Peter Farrelly to complain loudly when his comedy “Hall Pass’’ had its promotional screening in two of the Common’s theaters prior to opening this past February. Farrelly went from one screening where the 3-D lens had been removed to a second in which the lens was still on, and he couldn’t believe his eyes.

“I walked into the room and I could barely see, and my stomach dropped,’’ the filmmaker said. “The first screening looked spectacular and the second was so dark, it was daytime versus nighttime. If they’re doing this for a big screening, I can’t imagine what they do for regular customers. That’s no way to see a movie.’’

So the whole native v. converted thing I think is stupid.

3D - - the plague is spreading!

I don't think Pirates was shot in 3D

I don't think Pirates was shot in 3D

I don't think Pirates was shot in 3D

Worldwide people still like 3D and their economies are better.

Also 3D launched later. Next year sure there will be 3D fatigue in most markets.

I just talked to a friend who is color blind and he says 3D gives him real problems - too dark and gives him a headache.

I just talked to a friend who said Ryu is color blind and hates 3D.

I am not 100% sure (I have personally never met or known a color blind person)...

...but I don't think headaches are related to color-blindness but there are non-color-blind audience that are having the same problem.

• The title of the movie listed by the theater will have a "D" after it if it is being shown on a digital projector.
• If you are in a D movie, look at the projector window when seated. If you see two stacked beams of light it is a Sony projector with the 3D lens still on.
• A single beam of light means no 3D lens, or a different make of projector that doesn't have the issue.
• If you see the two beams, then get up and go complain. You paid good money to see the movie, so make a fuss until they either give you back that money or remove the lens. Seeing as that's an involved and time-consuming process, expect a refund.

I got emails from readers saying the night scenes in "Pirates of the Caribbean" were so dim they were annoying.

Ah, but what if you saw the movie in 2D? As it happens, a lot of people did; Gitesh Pandya of BoxOfficeGuru.com reported: "less than half of the Pirates weekend gross came from 3D screens, with more opting for the 2D version." He attributes that to moviegoers being "cautious with their dollars." After the weekend, David Poland of MovieCityNews.com ran the numbers and determined 60% of sales were in 2D and 40% in 3D: "Not only is this a clear rejection of 3D on a major movie, but given how distribution is currently designed, it makes you wonder whether Disney cost themselves a lot of gross by putting their film on too high a percentage of 3D screens."