It seems that the film industry is preparing for a revolution, which can only be compared with the advent of sound films. A new technology, which should change beyond recognition how people go to the movies, is virtual reality.
The American company Dreamscape Immersive, among whose investors you can see the famous Steven Spielberg, promotes the so-called cinematic virtual reality (Cinematic VR), says The Washington Post. Putting on VR-glasses, the audience literally plunges into the film - the world, invented by writers and directors, surrounds them from all sides.
It was such an experimental cinema Dreamscape Immersive opened in the shopping center The Westfield Century City in Los Angeles. True, full-length films are not shown there yet - in the repertoire of the VR-cinema you can see only a 12-minute fiction film "Alien Zoo", based on the "Jurassic Park".
Investors from Hollywood and not only have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in new technology. They are sure that VR-cinemas will make a real revolution in the film industry, incomparable even with the advent of streaming services like Netflix. But how much are their hopes justified?
To make this happen, and VR-cinemas have become commercially successful, they need to offer viewers a much higher level of interactivity - in other words, in the movies, you need to add elements of computer games. The problem is that to date this idea does not look very realistic - filmmakers do not know how much freedom they are willing to provide to their viewers, and the latter do not understand how much they need this freedom.
In addition, existing cinemas are simply not ready for the introduction of VR-technologies. Until problems with the rental are resolved, talking about VR-films as a market product, to put it mildly, is premature.
Nevertheless, the most advanced investors and entrepreneurs are already preparing for a future revolution. So, Facebook in 2014 bought for $ 2 billion manufacturer of VR-glasses Oculus and created a special unit for the development of animation Oculus Story Studio.
Film director Chris Milk, one of the pioneers of virtual reality, launched VR-platform Within and producer company Here Be Dragons, which he was able to attract $ 65 million.
Of course, the VR-movie creators have to solve a lot of problems - both commercial and technological. But it's worth it. At the same "Alien Zoo" tickets worth $ 20 sold out for a month ahead, which means that viewers like the idea of being in the middle of the events.