Steven Soderbergh's 'State Of Cinema' Address

Last weekend, at the San Francisco International Film Festival, Steven Soderbergh delivered a tour de force speech that aptly sums up the Hollywood movie industry in 2013. He covers box-office grosses, theatre admissions, marketing strategies, numbers of films released per year, insider stories, and his own thoughts on how to improve 'the studio system'. While he doesn't specifically address 3D film, he does infer strongly that studios are spending more, on fewer films, to earn more money. How does this have anything to do with 3D? Well, one can see this logic in play with the release pattern of 3D films: while there are fewer films per year being greenlit with a budget of $10 million, there are more 'tent-pole' releases having $10 million added to their already-massive budgets to convert or shoot the blockbuster in 3D. We'll be covering some of this ground next week in a three part special that asks "is 3D still a fad?" but for now you can watch (or read the transcription) the highly entertaining Soderbergh deliver his thoughts: