Two days before it opens in the U.S. Disney’s Bolt will premiere at the inaugural 3DX: 3D Film & Entertainment Technology Festival in Singapore. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the animated family flick will be honored as the opening movie, kicking off the fest on Nov. 19. The screening will be preceded by a rundown of Disney’s hefty slate of upcoming 3-D pics, which includes the Pixar adventure Up, the live-action/CG hybrid G-Force and the mo-cap pic Disney’s A Christmas Carol.
3DX is a five-day event being produced by Jim Chabin Partners of Los Angeles and the Media Development Authority of Singapore. The keynote address will be delivered by DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, filmmaker James Cameron and Twentieth Century Fox filmed entertainment chair Jim Gianopulos. All three have vested interests in 3-D entertainment. DreamWorks Animation has committed to designing all of its animated features for stereoscopic exhibition starting with next year’s Monsters Vs. Aliens, and Cameron is working on the highly anticipated, CG-laden sci-fi adventure Avatar, which will be distributed by Fox in 2010. Fox also has the animated sequel Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs set for release in July of 2009, and is preparing to re-release George Lucas’ Star Wars films in 3-D.
Directed by Chris Williams and Byron Howard, Bolt tells the story of a canine TV star (voiced by John Travolta) that is inadvertently shipped from Hollywood to New York City. During his cross-country journey home to his owner, Penny (Miley Cyrus), he makes the surprising discovery that his TV super powers don’t work in the real world. He his joined in his adventure by a jaded, abandoned housecat named Mittens (Susie Essman) and a TV-obsessed hamster in a plastic ball named Rhino. The film will open in North America on Nov. 21.
Other stereoscopic pics to be screened at 3DX include New Line Cinema’s CG-laden Jules Verne adaptation, Journey to the Center of the Earth, which opened in theaters over the summer, and nWave Pictures and Illuminata Pictures’ animated family adventure-comedy, Fly Me to the Moon.
