Although at Comic Con, Jon Favreau said there were no plans to do any of Iron Man 2 in 3D, due to the fact that they’re shooting on film rather than digital, Ain’t It Cool News is reporting that the studio might be thinking differently. Paramount has reportedly done a 1-minute demo of Iron Man 2, converted to high-quailty digital 3D and they’re very impressed by the results.
The studio and Marvel are now apparently looking for bids from three different companies to find out the cost and time involved in turning the whole movie into 3D. This would involve scanning the film into a computer, and then creating a virtual 3D environment from each frame, much the same as was done with G-Force and with the live-action elements of Tim Burton’s upcoming Alice In Wonderland. Although it’s kind of a cheat, it can be effective if donw properly.
However, with Iron Man 2 planned for release next May and huge amounts of post-production work still to do on the movie, it would be very difficult to convert the entire thing in time for the cinema release. That leaves three options. Either it won’t happen, only bits of it will get converted (as they did with the first 15 mins of Harry postter 6 for IMAX) or there’ll be a separate 3D release of the film later in the summer. We can’t see them delaying the overall release just for 3D, but who knows?
3D films are becoming increasingly attractive as not only are they doing extremely well at the cinema, but we’re not far from a standard being agreed for 3D Blu-rays and the release of TV screens that will be able to handle proper polarised 3D imagery, meaning there’s plenty more money to be made down the line. At the moment all this is just rumour, but don’t be surprised if some Iron Man 2 does get some sort of 3D treatment.