Shrek 4 the victim of 3D over-pricing?

Shrek Forever After had been projected to rake in more than $105 million over the weekend, but could only stir up $70 mil in spite of inflated 3D prices (approaching 20 bucks a pop for IMAX 3D tickets in some cities). As the price for 3D seating has jumped 22% from last year, Vulture wonders if Shrek underperformed because fewer folks are wiling to pay an egregious ogre troll toll.

People happily paid a surcharge to see Avatar because it was something they‚Äôd never seen before ‚Äî but they‚Äôve definitely seen the Shrek gang before… In the teeth of a recession, movie attendance jumped 4.5 percent in 2009 and the industry saw a record haul of over $10 billion, because people decided that going to the movies was actually their cheapest entertainment option. But with the jacking-up of 3-D prices, that may no longer be the case. And studios fear that a backlash may be starting, just in time for the release of all the pricey 3-D blockbusters that they green-lit after Avatar.

“We cannot control what [theaters] charge,” said an exasperated top distribution executive at a major studio. “And we have to be very careful what we say about this: It’s illegal for us to even think about speaking to them about what they charge. But this is insanity.”

Patrick Corcoran, director of media and research for the National Association of Theater Owners, says that the number of 3-D films in release is too small to determine whether people are rebelling at the cost or the quality, but he does imply that in this case, it may have been the movie’s fault. “Look at the film and people’s interest in it,” he says. “Both Shrek 2 and Shrek 3 were not shown in 3-D, and yet they still did better.”

The biggest irony in all this comes from DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg possibly being the first victim of 3-D pricing; he’s the format’s main booster, and only last month was touting higher 3-D ticket prices as the tonic for badly sagging DVD sales. So much for happily ever after.

Looks like the ‘revolution in cinema’ has a lot in common with August 1917.