Fish out your glasses! 3D movies are about to make a comeback

The much-hyped and much-delayed sequel to Avatar is set to bring about a return to 3D but are audiences interested?

Avatar 2 will be the riskiest film of the year for all sorts of reasons. There's the issue of whether or not the public actually wants a 12-years-in-the-making sequel to a film that has retained no cultural cachet whatsoever. There's the fact that, if it flops, James Cameron still has to release three more Avatar movies after this one. But most of all, Avatar 2 will have to convince us all to wear stupid 3D glasses again.

A decade ago, 3D was supposed to be the future of cinema. Thanks to the first Avatar, which used the technology to drop us into gorgeous, immersive alien landscapes, every big budget movie enthusiastically strapped itself to this new way of film-making. Peter Jackson made 3D films. Ridley Scott made a 3D film. Martin Scorsese made a 3D film. Ang Lee made a 3D film and won an Oscar for it, for crying out loud.