Like earlier versions of 3-D, RealD requires special glasses to see the screen's image in three dimensions. But unlike the classic "blue-and-red" lenses of the past, these glasses aren't colorized, and they don't require two projectors running simultaneously to project the 3D image.

"It's a lot more comfortable and natural than at any time in history," said Joshua Greer, the president and co-founder of RealD in Beverly Hills. "Filmmakers are realizing that it's not just a gimmick, it's a legitimate tool … for telling stories.

"3-D done right is a far more natural and realistic experience than watching 2-D films," he said. "It's taken 100 years for us to catch up with the ideas of the artists."

The idea behind 3-D filmmaking was first developed in the 1930s and became popular in the early to mid-1950s, when a flurry of films were released in 3-D including The Creature From the Black Lagoon and Bwana Devil. The fad died out and then came back briefly in the early 1980s with such films as Jaws 3-D and Comin' At Ya!

The key to 3-D filmmaking is to create separate images for each eye, then find a way to line those images up perfectly. In the old blue-and-red technique, known as anaglyphic 3-D, the eyes were tricked into combining separate images that were shown on the screen using dual projectors. But if anything became slightly off-track or mistimed, it didn't work.

RealD uses a digital projectors with special lenses added on to them that alternate the left and right images faster than the human eye can see, projected on a silver-tinted screen that reflects more light back than a traditional screen. Once the silver screen is put up in a theater for a 3-D movie, it can be used for 2-D movies as well. Where a traditional film is projected at 24 frames per second, the RealD image is 144 frames per second.

Greer first became interested in 3-D when he worked with director James Cameron on the Titanic documentary Ghosts of the Abyss. At the time, he wasn't a fan of 3-D films.

"I hated it," he said. "I'd seen House of Wax when I was 12 and it made me sick." But he worked with Cameron on a 3-D Imax version of Ghosts. He came to appreciate the potential for 3-D in the digital age.

RealD was first used for some prints of Chicken Little, the 2005 computer-animated film, and has subsequently been used for animated films such as Meet the Robinsons, Monster House and Beowulf. It was even used to convert a non-3-D movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, into a 3-D one. The process has also been used for concert films such as Hanna Montana & Miley Cyrus: The Best of Both Worlds Concert and U2 3D, both of which were released this year.

"So far, Hanna Montana was the biggest one," said Randall Nobles, the manager of the Wynnsong 12 theater in Winston-Salem. "But of course, she draws a lot of crowds."

The Hanna Montana concert film brought in $31.1 million its opening weekend, 96 percent of which came from theaters that showed it in 3-D. That number was helped by a $15 ticket price, about twice that of a normal movie ticket.

Nobles said that local reaction has been very favorable to 3D movies and their ability to offer viewers something they can't get in their homes. "They see it as a special event," he said.

That sentiment has kept the audiences from balking at the extra costs. Screenings of 3-D movies are often a few dollars more than their 2-D counterparts because of the digital projectors and the glasses. "There's a select few who would rather not pay the service charge," Nobles said, but he said that most customers have been pleased.

In Winston-Salem, the Wynnsong has three screens capable of playing RealD movies; the Carmike 10 has one screen; and the Grande hopes to have two screens ready in time for this weekend's debut of Journey.

Reaction to RealD, according to Greer, "has been fantastic. We're seeing three times the box office for 3-D screens versus 2-D of the same film. We're rolling it out all over the world."

Less than 100 theater screens were equipped to play Chicken Little in 3-D back in 2005. Journey to the Center of the Earth will open in 3-D on more than 1,100 screens in North America. By the end of 2008, more than 2,000 screens will be able to play RealD films.

Dreamworks Animation and Disney/Pixar have embraced the new wave of 3-D, starting with Pixar's November release of Bolt and Dreamwork's 2009 release Monsters Vs. Aliens. Further down the road, Cars 2 will be shown in RealD.

Among the directors working on projects that will be shown in RealD are such heavy hitters as Cameron, who will use the process for his long-awaited, science-fiction epic Avatar; Tim Burton, who plans to use the technology for two films, a gothic remake of Alice in Wonderland and a feature-length version of his early film short Frankenweenie; and Robert Zemeckis is using RealD for his version of A Christmas Carol. And earlier hits such as the Toy Story films are being re-edited for release in 3-D. More than 30 major 3-D movies are scheduled to be released in 2009 and 2010 together.

But could the novelty wear off?

"People asked exactly that same question when sound was introduced, and when color was introduced," Greer said. "People thought it was a luxury. Now it's hard to imagine a film without sound coming out."

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