“According to source familiar with Warner’s release plans for Peter Jackson’s first HOBBIT, the HFR (high-frame-rate) version will go out to only select locations, perhaps not even into all major cities.”
Presumably, that means that if you’re living in a major city that isn’t Los Angeles or New York, you’re likely f*cked. More on that when the details actually come in. But the decision from WB should come as no surprise following the extremely mixed word-of-mouth that came out of CinemaCon earlier this year (not to mention the decision to only unveil HOBBIT footage at Comic-Con in 2D 24fps). However, the Variety report does go on to mention that “the picture now looks vastly better than the test footage shown this April at CinemaCon, which had not yet undergone post-production polishing and got a mixed reception from exhibitors.” Is this true or just spin on the part of WB, which is claiming that the scaling back is in an effort to “protect the format”? What does that even mean?
The reality now is that THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY will be a test. Should word-of-mouth be positive in the few 48fps locations it will be exhibited, then expect THE HOBBIT: THERE AND BACK AGAIN to expand a little further, and so on with the third film.