Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to The Metaverse

The movies have gone through many iterations, the advent of sound, the rise of color, various formats such as Vistavision, Cinerama, Dolby and THX. For a change, I want to look into the future to make you aware there are numerous changes in technology which are going to impact the future of movie going. The key word in all these changes is the moniker, Metaverse.

The metaverse is a hypothesized iteration and in some ways a re-invention of the internet, supporting persistent online 3-D virtual environments through conventional personal computing, as well as virtual and augmented reality headsets. Metaverses, in some limited form, are already present on platforms like VRChat or video games. The pioneering efforts around the metaverse are being advanced by companies like Facebook, with their VR platform Oculus and there is a reason Facebook changed their name to META. Oculus has all the processing power built into the headset and does not require the user to be tethered to a computer. It is all handled over wi-fi and fast downloads into a hard drive that resides in the headset.

Current metaverse ambitions are centered on addressing technological limitations with modern virtual and augmented reality devices, as well as expanding the use of metaverse spaces to business, education, and retail applications. A great many entertainment and social media companies have invested heavily in metaverse-related research and development.

Right now I can put on my Oculus glasses and fight with Darth Vader, get a spirited workout and travel the invented and real world. The glasses are sub $300 bucks and can give the user an increasingly large amount of experiences. When Cinerama was introduced they produced a movie for the theaters called” This Is Cinerama” which showed various vistas, roller coaster rides and airplane flights. VR has already launched its version of Cinerama and then some. When they fully integrate game play with hand controllers this technology will explode onto the scene.

A couple of people who I have followed in the past, Lenny Lipton (the same Lenny Lipton who wrote Puff The Magic Dragon) and his work in cinematic 3D and Douglas Trumbull (did the effects on 2001 A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters) with his work on high frame rate projection. Lipton developed all forms of 3D systems including RealD. I had a discussion with Trumbull, who told me that his experiments with projecting movies at 60 frames per second created an emotional response in the viewer five times the amount when projected at 24 frames a second. Both of these brilliant minds have predicted that movies really happen within the viewers minds and when they are capable of implanting a storyline directly into the cerebral cortex; that’s when movie going will have reached its apex. With VR glasses that reality is almost here.

The paradigm shift that has been created by the advancement of the Marvel Movie, has changed the way media and gaming companies approach new stories. We are seeing diminishing stand alone movies, in favor of a continuity of related content. Media companies are beginning to understand that The Avengers competes with Fortnite, in fact the CEO of Netflix made that direct comparison. Netflix dipped its toes in the multimedia property market when it produced the game inspired series, Castlevania. Amazon’s game division has made the proclamation that its intent is to makes games that also can be series and movies. Netflix has jumped into the gaming market whole hog. Game publishers Riot and Ubisoft are now making TV shows alongside their game offerings. They are all starting to race towards the metaverse.

Media Companies are investing more and more into projects that have multi platform manifestations and span all forms of media, thinking of them as genre- and medium-spanning franchises from the very beginning of their conception. Game publishers are preparing for a cloud delivered product. These uber engaged titles are crowding out smaller releases and products that are designed for a singular medium.? The race to the metaverse is creating a digital kudzu that is crowding out the prior cinematic economy. It is a trend that will not stop.

Theaters must take notice of this massive paradigm shift and find their way into the metaverse. Home screens are about to reach their size limitations, in most homes a ten foot tv monitor is not at all practical. I have a 55 inch that for me is crowding the family room.

How do theaters engage in the Metaverse. Let's take a look at Roblox . Roblox is a metaverse where players go to play games invented by other players. What makes Roblox truly unique is that all the games are made by its user base. Right now it has developed millions of unique games for use within the Roblox environment. Last year Roblox hosted a concert by Lil Nas within its platform, 33 million folks showed up. That my friends is the Metaverse and that is why theaters must incorporate elements of it in order to prosper.

One of the things that theaters have trouble comprehending is that we are heading towards a world where one set of intellectual property will be created and then will be exploited over various mediums and all of this might happen concurrently on all platforms, including streaming, theatrical, video gaming and VR.

Motion Picture CGI gave rise to video gaming, now gaming technology is hyper accelerating movies. “The Mandalorian” is primarily produced in front of high resolution LED screens eliminating the need for on location production. The backgrounds for these scenes are often created by using a game engine called Unity, which initially developed for game production is finding itself utilized for all manner of media production.

The rise of the Metaverse is giving rise to the expansion of mediums often with the same intellectual property. It shall have a profound and lasting impact on large screens, small screens and VR screens. It is a deep game changer and is something that will be incorporated into moviegoing. This will reflect itself in communal VR experiences to the establishment of a holodeck like experience in theater auditoriums.

A new player is on deck, theaters owners must move towards this new virtual reality and embrace it firmly.