Digital gurus can't send in the 'Clones'

Engineering, financial problems cause conversion delay

A couple of years ago, hopes were high that up to 2,000 screens could be converted to digital projection in time for George Lucas' "Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones."

No more. Reality will fall short of those hopes by a hundredfold, as there are only 20 digital screens in place nationwide and little prospect of adding many more by pic's skedded May 16 release.

"We've proselytized about this for years," Lucasfilm prexy Gordon Radley observed. "So, it's disappointing to think that it continues to take digital cinema longer to come to fruition than it should."

Over the past several years, industryites have gone from talking about digital cinema as a future possibility to something more of an inevitability. Suddenly it's not a question of whether some portion of the exhibition industry will convert to digital, merely of when.

High-tech hurdles

However, the actual rollout of the technology has been hindered by two main factors:

• There's still no uniform set of engineering standards for digital cinema systems.

• Exhibitors have had more pressing problems on their minds, with a dozen circuits filing for bankruptcy reorganization amid industry overexpansion.

Lucas once fervently hoped that -- at the very least -- several hundred digital screens would be in place by the time "Clones" unspools. The second "Star Wars" prequel was shot entirely in digital video, and the ideal way to screen such pics is electronically.

As recently as last year, there was speculation Lucas might insist the space epic unspool only in venues equipped for digital projection. But the filmmaker quickly nixed that talk, no doubt seeing early signs that even several hundred digital installations was a long-shot prospect at best.

Now, the rosiest prediction is that maybe -- somehow, some way -- several dozen additional movie screens may be converted to digital projection by the time "Clones" bows. The problem is that it remains highly dubious whether anybody will ante up the multimillion-dollar sum needed to fund such an effort.

Pic's distrib, 20th Century Fox, won't, nor are any of the nation's cash-strapped exhibs considered likely to do so. Wannabe service providers for digital theaters -- such as Technicolor, Boeing and Kodak -- have been approached by Fox and Lucasfilm, but so far no funding deal has been sealed or digital equipment ordered.

"At some point, it's just going to be too late," a well-placed source noted.

One concern -- even among digital cinema's most ardent proponents -- is that early versions of digital systems would quickly become obsolete.

Left holding digital bag

"They could go to all this trouble and expense seeding some number of digital screens to make Mr. Lucas happy," quipped one observer. "Then, after 'Episode II,' they'd have to turn around and say, 'Uh, can we have another digital movie please?' "

Digital productions come along infrequently and generally involve computer-generated tooners like DreamWorks' "Shrek" or Disney/Pixar's "Monsters, Inc." Of course, Lucas plans a third "Star Wars" prequel -- for release three years from now.

"It's possible that 'Episode III' will be distributed entirely in digital," Laguna Research Partners analyst Kevin Skislock said recently.

Of course, that's what some were saying about "Attack of the Clones," too.

"Clones" will be released on at least 3,000 screens domestically. That means even with as many as 120 U.S. digital screens in place by pic's opening -- and maybe a handful more in Canada -- "Clones" would unspool in only one digital venue for every two dozen times it screens conventionally.