Cannes: Virtual Reality Plays Bigger Role on Croisette as Advocates Tout Platform and Possibilities
A still image from SPHERES: Songs of Spacetime by Eliza McNitt, an official selection of the New Frontier VR Experiences program at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
When Sundance sales were tallied this year, one title was left out of many stories: “Spheres,” a three-part virtual reality series from executive producer Darren Aronofsky’s Protozoa Pictures. VR financing/distribution outfit CityLights’ seven-figure acquisition of the project was reportedly a record for the fest’s 11-year-old New Frontier section.
“The sale signaled that there is a path for independent VR,” Aronofsky says of director Eliza McNitt’s work, which places viewers in the center of outer space with narration by Jessica Chastain and Patti Smith. “The most important films are often made outside the studio system, where creators have the freedom to advance the medium. We now know this can be true of VR, too.”
The sale was promising news for Next, the innovation hub at Cannes Market. The section will showcase more than 25 projects (including VR companion pieces for Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” and Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs”), a theater for VR market screenings equipped with Positron’s pod-like Voyager chairs (programmed to move viewers and literally shake up their senses) and a panel on Cinema VRE [Virtual Reality Experiences] and the Future of Immersive Technologies, moderated by Intel global content technology strategist Ravi Velhal.
Yet exhibitors are also beginning to fuel a market for new projects. Imax has launched seven VR centers, some in partnership with AMC Theatres and Regal Cinemas, in New York City; L.A.; Toronto; Manchester, England; Bangkok, and Shanghai. It has developed a $50 million fund for VR content and partnered with Warner Bros. Home Entertainment to co-finance and produce VR projects (including an exclusive “Justice League” presentation out now). AMC (joining 21st Century Fox, MGM, Warner Bros. and others) has reportedly invested more than $40 million in the tech startup Dreamscape Immersive to open up to six “virtual reality multiplexes” by next year. Cinemark will open its first “virtual reality experience” in its flagship West Plano, Texas, theater this summer. And in April, Regal Entertainment Group introduced Moviebill, a magazine featuring an interactive augmented reality (AR) platform with exclusive content, interviews and games that “come to life” when consumers scan it with an app.
Teenagers, he’s found, “are more interested in social networks, and the price point of VR is a bit too expensive for them right now.”
More stars are also expected to jump on the bandwagon. At Next this year, Alicia Vikander will voice a lead role in Penrose Studios’ animated VR sequel “Arden’s Wake: Tide’s Fall,” and a graphic novel adaptation from Will.i.am and the Black Eyed Peas will include the voice talents of Queen Latifah, Ice-T and Jamie Foxx.
See the full story here: http://variety.com/2018/film/spotlight/virtual-reality-cannes-2018-1202801543/