Walt Disney Studios is partnering with Dolby Laboratories to bring digital projection to 100 specially selected, high profile theaters in 25 top North American markets.  Both Disney and Dolby are helping finance the new systems, which will debut with the November 4th release of Disney's CGI animated feature Chicken Little, which will be presented in 'Disney Digital 3-D.'  Lucasfilm's Industrial Light and Magic and Real D, a digital production company, are working on the digital rendering for the new 3-D process, which requires a different kind of 3-D glasses and reportedly provides a much better three-dimensional effect. 

The Chicken Little program will more than double the number of digital screens in the U.S. and after Chicken Little's run is over Dolby can work with other studios to provide digital 3-D projection.  A number of top filmmakers including James Cameron, George Lucas, Robert Rodriguez, Peter Jackson and Robert Zemeckis are very interested in the new process, which could be used to retroactively to provide the basis for revivals of classic films in the new 3-D format (see 'Star Wars in 3-D'). 

Pop culture retailers would obviously benefit if, in a few years, there would be 3-D revivals of The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars or Spider-Man.  The main stumbling block to the new 3-D process is that it requires digital projection, and with declining attendance theater owners have been slow to convert from conventional film projection to digital.  Since the studios would save large amounts of money if they did not have to make as many 35 mm prints of their films, they have a financial interest in helping theater owners make the conversion, which explains why Disney and Dolby are investing in the 3-D rollout for Chicken Little.