Dimensional Disney

Going through the Hat Building, I watched staffers working on this:

Disney’s The Lion King will release into theaters this year in a new 3D format for the very first time on September 16th.

... Ahead of the Cars 2 screening, we were treated to the opening scene of The Lion King 3D which entails the entire “Circle of Life” song that ends in the title card. So, nearly four minutes of footage. The brightness and the clarity were great, and there are scenes that seemed tailor-made for 3D in retrospect. We have plenty of creatures walking towards the screen, and numerous opportunities to show off different depths, including a shot of ants climbing on a branch with zebras crossing in the background. ...

Several months ago, I had the chance to see a large part of Beauty and the Beast in three dimensions, and was pleasantly surprised how good it looked. No doubt LK will look even better.

Any quality conversion to 3-D is complex and time-consuming. Mr. Kaplan recently had lunch with a digital artist who is part of the team adding an extra dimension to James Cameron's Titanic. And apparently Mr. C. is a stickler for having everything look superlative, and not just "okay." (Who would have guessed?)

That conversion will occupy the next eighteen months.