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LOS ANGELES â€" We saved Pandora. We got seasick with Pi. We danced with Gatsby, all in 3-D.
Sandra Bullock, left, and George Clooney in “Gravity.â€
A stereographic image featured in “Soldiers’ Stories,†about World War I’s Somme offensive. American soldiers train to put on gas masks.
Are there any thrills left in what was supposed to be Hollywood’s medium of the future?
For some, George Clooney’s chin in Imax 3-D â€" digitally remastered for the large-format version of “Gravity,†due from Warner Brothers on Oct. 4 â€" might qualify. So it’s not over yet.
But in general, filmgoers in North America â€" having sampled three-dimensional viewing in films as breathtaking as “Avatar†and “Life of Pi,†â€" are drifting back to conventional theaters. That is happening despite an aggressive digital conversion program by exhibitors, who raised the number of domestic 3-D screens to almost 15,000 at the end of last year, more than four times the count in 2009.
This summer, films like “Turbo†and “The Wolverine†took in 30 percent or less of their opening weekend receipts from 3-D sales, compared with levels as high as 60 percent for summer films only a few years ago.
According to the IHS research firm, receipts from 3-D ticket sales at the North American box office fell 13.1 percent in the first half of 2013, to about $1.05 billion, from $1.21 billion in the year-earlier period. In another closely watched measure of the medium, RealD, which supplies 3-D technology to theaters both here and abroad, last week reported a net loss of $1.5 million in its fiscal first quarter ended June 30, compared with net income of $2.9 million in the year-earlier period. That happened as revenue dropped 13.1 percent, to about $59.2 million from about $68.2 million a year earlier.
Despite these numbers, Hollywood remains committed to at least five dozen 3-D movies through 2016, according to a recent count by Exhibitor Relations, a box-office consultant. And some of those films promise to create a fresh shiver, if not quite the same jolt that accompanied Baz Luhrmann’s garish, three-dimensional rendering this spring of “The Great Gatsby.â€
In “Gravity,†which is directed by Alfonso Cuarón, Mr. Clooney joins Sandra Bullock in a cast of two (not counting disembodied voices). They play astronauts who find themselves adrift in space after a shuttle accident.
To approximate a tumble through the silent cosmos, the actors were photographed with specially designed robotic cameras that would race at 25 miles per hour to within an inch of a multimillion-dollar nose.
“If that robot did decide to continue through my face, I couldn’t get out of its way,†Ms. Bullock said last month during a presentation at the Comic-Con International fan convention in San Diego.
On Sept. 20, film purists may feel shock of another kind, when a much-loved classic, “The Wizard of Oz,†is released for an exclusive, one-week run on Imax screens in a 3-D version from Warner Brothers. Relatively few people now living have ever seen the 1939 film in a theater, never mind in three dimensions.
The mini-release will help promote a five-disc home video set, which includes a version playable on 3-D televisions. It is also part of an Imax strategy intended to create unusual events on its large-format screens during the late summer and early fall weeks when the blockbuster business has trailed off.
Thus, “Metallica Through the Never,†another unusual 3-D film, this one from Picturehouse, will have an exclusive one week-run in Imax theaters beginning Sept. 27.
Its novelty comes not just from the placement of cameras inside the heavy metal band’s perimeter during performances of a semi-violent concert-in-the-round, but also from an effort to bring sound â€" lots of it â€" into the equation.
“The audio is a massive contributor to the effect of 3-D,†said Greg Foster, a senior executive vice president for Imax Corporation.
Speaking by telephone recently, Mr. Foster said the future of movies in 3-D depends on the willingness of directors like Nimrod Antal, who made the Metallica film, to treat the medium and its potential with respect. “It all depends on the filmmakers being fully invested, and owning it,†Mr. Foster said.
One deeply invested filmmaker is Robert Redford, who is working on a subtler but no less intriguing project in 3-D. Mr. Redford is contributing one segment to an anthology-style documentary, “Cathedrals of Culture,†about various architectural masterpieces.
Overseen by Wim Wenders, whose contribution is a 3-D look at the architect Hans Scharoun’s Berlin Philharmonic Hall, the film is expected to appear both on television and in theaters sometime next year. Mr. Redford is directing a 26-minute examination of the Salk Institute’s mysteriously placid ocean-side campus, which was designed by Louis Kahn and built 50 years ago in La Jolla, Calif.
“Some people have said it’s a sacred place,†said Laura Michalchysyn, who is a producer of the project.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: August 11, 2013
An earlier version of a picture caption with this article described the image incorrectly. It was a stereographic image of American soldiers in World War I; it was not a negative.
A version of this article appeared in print on August 12, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Appeal of 3-D Wanes, but New Releases Are Still Planned.
From classifieds to display ads to subscriptions, the digital age has broken the financial pillars of print journalism, leaving the industry struggling to stand on its own.
Jeffrey P. Bezos, left, founder of Amazon.com, bought The Washington Post.
Who Just Bought The Washington Post? Close Video See More Videos » 
Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, said he backed journalism because he valued news he could trust.
But more frequently â€" and with a boom last week, when Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, bought The Washington Post â€" the tycoons who have led the digital revolution are giving traditional print outlets a hand.
Call it a sense of obligation. Or responsibility. Or maybe there is even a twinge of guilt. Helping print journalism adapt to a changed era is becoming a cause de jour among the technology elite.
Google, which has been criticized for profiting from news content created by others, began financing journalism fellowships for eight people this year. The founder of Craigslist, the free listing service that helped ruin newspapers’ classified advertising, helped finance a book on ethics for journalists.
A co-founder of Facebook, the social network many young people rely on for news, recently bought New Republic magazine, and the founder of eBay, another classified ad killer, started an online news service in Hawaii. Steven P. Jobs, the former Apple chief executive, went out of his way to advise newspapers how to adapt their products for the tablet era.
“So ironic,†Les Hinton, a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, wrote in a Twitter post last week about Mr. Bezos, that The Washington Post “should be consumed by a pioneer of the industry that almost destroyed it.â€
Technology industry leaders, who “deal in fact and code,†are supporting the press because they value it, said Merrill Brown, director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University and the former editor in chief of MSNBC.com.
“They’re concerned about where the country is going and share a commonly held point of view that what we do is important for democracy,†said Mr. Brown, who is also a partner at the venture capital firm DFJ Frontier.
This union of the press and digital patrons is sometimes awkward. For starters, tech moguls seem to do their best to stay as far away as possible from the news media’s prying questions. Mr. Jobs was famously prickly around the press, while Mr. Bezos has shunned all interviews about his purchase of The Washington Post except for one â€" with The Washington Post.
Technology’s helping hand has mostly been extended to newspapers and magazines. And some tech-focused companies, like Yahoo, have long been involved in the news business, hiring their own reporters and editors, setting themselves up as direct competitors to traditional news outlets.
On the business side of newspapers, executives have done little to hide their suspicions about the technology companies that are reaching out. Several years ago, while Mr. Hinton was publisher of The Wall Street Journal, he described Google as a “vampire†sucking the blood from newspapers because of how it aggregated news articles on its Google News site.
Frank A. Blethen, the publisher and chief executive of The Seattle Times, scoffed last week at the overtures Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, had made to journalism causes. “He clearly disrupted classified advertising,†Mr. Blethen said. He added dismissively about Mr. Newmark’s efforts in journalism ethics, “and now he’s portraying himself in this public policy realm.â€
Many critics of the newspaper industry say its predicament is its own fault for allowing upstarts like Craigslist to outflank it with better methods for advertising automobiles, rental apartments and other merchandise.
Mr. Newmark declined to comment on why newspaper officials blamed him. He said he supported journalism initiatives â€" media ethics and fact-checking are two pet causes â€" because he valued news he could trust. He said he was not even convinced that Craigslist had hurt newspaper classified advertising.
“I’m still waiting to see any hard evidence for cause-and-effect,†Mr. Newmark said. “I’ve been paying attention for a long time.â€
Mr. Newmark said he donated $42,000 to the Poynter Institute, a journalism school in St. Petersburg, Fla., to host a seminar related to a book Poynter recently published on journalism ethics and for the development of a related Web site.
Brian Stelter contributed reporting.
A version of this article appeared in print on August 12, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Some Help From a Nemesis.
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GETTING the attention of the so-called millennial generation is no easy feat for many advertisers. Try as they might to break through on television, social media and other digital platforms, their sales pitches are often ignored in favor of Netflix, Snapchat, Twitter and video games.
In a sponsorship deal, American Express will offer a line of prepaid debit cards illustrated with images and characters from the League of Legends game.
Executives at American Express say they think they may have found a way around that by becoming part of a digital game experience. On Wednesday, the company is to announce a sponsorship program that takes aim at the millions of people who play the online video game League of Legends by Riot Games.
The centerpiece of the partnership is a line of prepaid debit cards that are illustrated with images and characters from the game and that allow cardholders to get so-called Riot Points that can be used to buy characters and other extras in the game.
Users receive 1,000 points when they sign up for the card and an additional 1,000 points after loading $20 onto the card. Additional points can be earned for the first 10 purchases made with the card, and 10,000 points are awarded the first time a card is linked to a direct deposit account.
Additional points can be earned for every dollar spent after that. The card requires no credit check, activation fee or minimum balance. Instead, like most prepaid cards, it is loaded with a cardholder’s own money and used in lieu of cash to make purchases.
Stefan Happ, general manager for online and mobile at American Express in the United States, said the partnership was intended to “expand our traditional reach beyond the mass affluent.†Mr. Happ cited the game’s 32 million players worldwide and the “staggering one billion hours of game play a month†as primary reasons for the partnership.
“It gives you a sense of how deeply engaged the players are in playing this game,†Mr. Happ said. “We are about loyalty, we are about contact and long-lasting engagement. This is an ideal fit from an audience perspective.†That audience is largely male and largely millennial, made up of players 18 to 24 years old, said Dustin Beck, vice president of electronic sports at Riot Games.
Riot Games released League of Legends in 2009. It is part of a video game subgenre sometimes called “multiplayer online battle arena,†where the players compete against each other in tournaments that are streamed online. The game can be played free online, but to gain access to specific characters or features, players need to buy Riot Points.
American Express has created a 30-second video to explain the prepaid card’s benefits. Digital banner ads are to begin appearing on Wednesday on the League of Legends Championship Series Web site, na.lolesports.com, where aficionados can watch live streams of games in progress. An American Express Web site explaining the card will also be available on Wednesday.
Sponsorships like the one with American Express help pay for the increasing costs associated with taking the game to a wider, more professional audience, Mr. Beck said, adding that Riot Games was in talks with other blue-chip companies for additional sponsorship opportunities.
“There is a great opportunity for brands here, particularly brands that make sense for our players,†he said, referring to the 18- to 24-year-old men who make up the bulk of the company’s player base. That group, he added, “is becoming harder to reach on TV and other mediums.â€
Executives at American Express declined to say what the campaign would cost, but according to data from Kantar Media, a unit of WPP, in 2012 the company spent $36 million advertising its prepaid cards on television, in magazines and online.
Norma P. Garcia, a senior lawyer and the manager of the financial services program for Consumers Union, the nonprofit group that publishes Consumer Reports, said linking game incentives like points with the use of a prepaid card could intensify the “addictive quality of games.â€
The prepaid card market in the United States has been growing in the last few years as more people forgo a relationship with a bank or try to control their spending, although consumer advocates are critical of the cards’ myriad fees for things like A.T.M. withdrawals, inactivity and balance inquiries. As the cards become more popular, they are increasingly being marketed at niche demographic segments, Ms. Garcia said.
“Everybody is getting into this game,†she said. “It’s really a question of how the marketer wants to wrap their card to appeal to a particular audience.â€
A version of this article appeared in print on August 12, 2013, on page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: AmEx Links a Debit Card to an Online Video Game.
Ann Johansson for The New York Times Joshua Davis, left, and Joshuah Bearman have both sold movie rights to their articles. They are setting up an online literary site that might help others do the same.
To many writers, to almost anyone for that matter, Joshuah Bearman and Joshua Davis are living the dream. As accomplished practitioners of big, nonfiction magazine writing, they regularly publish articles in Wired, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and many other A-list titles. Perhaps more important, they have, between them, optioned 18 of their articles for films, with two more in negotiation.
Most notably, Mr. Bearman’s 2007 story in Wired about the mission to free hostages in Iran from the Canadian ambassador’s residence was turned into “Argo,†which won Best Picture honors at this year’s Oscars. More recently, Mr. Bearman scored similar success with a tale about a group of 20-something surfers who joined with a former high school Spanish teacher to form a successful pot-smuggling operation. The article, “Coronado High,†appeared in GQ and Atavist, an online publisher, and was optioned even before it was published.
Mr. Davis, who has a contract with Wired as a contributing editor, sold his article about the flight of the software pioneer John McAfee to Warner Brothers, and an article he wrote about the world’s largest diamond heist is being adapted into a movie for Paramount by J. J. Abrams.
In Hollywood, options on magazine articles represent a long shot â€" most never get made into films â€" but the money for the rights can range into six figures for a highly coveted article.
The two men have found a way to make magazine writing work for them. But for most writers it can be a perilous existence at a time when the publishing industry is under significant pressure.
Now the Joshes â€" “we take turns being ‘good’ Josh and ‘evil’ Josh,†Mr. Davis said â€" say they believe it is time to try another way, especially with some publishers like Condé Nast offering contracts to writers that require sharing the money from film options.
On Monday, Mr. Bearman and Mr. Davis are introducing Epic, a kind of online literary platform that will commission and publish big, nonfiction narratives that might also make good movies.
They are trying to build a model for long-form journalism where the revenue generated over the entire life of a story â€" magazine fees, sales on Audible.com and Amazon Kindle Singles, ancillary film and television rights â€" can be used to finance the costs of reporting.
Writers, even ones with custody of a great story, can get lost in a thicket of pitches, edits and reselling. Mr. Bearman and Mr. Davis have cracked the code a bit and have the skills to help authors exercise some control in a changed marketplace. Whether or not it can work as a business is yet to be determined, but it could begin to change the way business is done and authors are treated.
Mr. Davis and Mr. Bearman were in Los Angeles last week talking about Epic with film executives and said they found that the appetite for great nonfiction in the wake of “Argo†â€" and several big sci-fi flops this summer â€" seems to be growing.
The story got more interesting when Mr. Bearman and Mr. Davis told me that the partner and backer in the effort will be Medium, a content platform that is just getting started as well.
You may not have heard of Medium, but it was co-founded by Evan Williams and Biz Stone, two of the creators of Twitter, and Jason Goldman, formerly of Twitter, so it may not be off your radar for long. And at a time when charging for content is all the rage, the stories on Medium will be there for the scrolling, gratis, on whatever device a reader happens to be using.
Mr. Williams isn’t talking about his involvement with Epic for the time being. But sitting in Bryant Park on a July afternoon, Mr. Bearman suggested that Medium was underwriting magazinelike projects because for a relatively small investment, the site can bring attention to a Web-based platform for content.
“My sense is that what they are looking for is high-quality content from us that will show what the platform can do,†he said, munching on lamb pita from a cart up the street.
“I think that in a lot of ways that the revolution that has taken place in film and Web production is just now coming to nonfiction,†he said. “Now writers have all these amazing digital options like Byliner, the Atavist and Kindle Singles. People are beginning to take production into their own hands.â€
Epic is joining that fray. At the park, Mr. Bearman swiveled around a MacBook and showed off a working prototype of the kind of story that will wind up on Epic. It is Mr. Davis’s account of a troubled American mercenary who was hired to investigate a double homicide at a gold mine in the Peruvian Andes and falls in love with his translator along the way. The visual narrative is gorgeous, with big photos and artfully arranged text that would look good on almost any device.
Mr. Bearman and Mr. Davis see Epic as a vehicle for writers, including themselves, that frees them from the narrow needs of a specific magazine. The writers will retain movie rights, but if they want help in setting up projects for Hollywood, Epic will function as a producer.
“This business model is an experiment,†Mr. Davis said by phone from San Francisco. “I think that Josh and I have demonstrated that we know what a good page-turner looks like. Those kinds of stories, the kind that gives you goose bumps, is what we both love about nonfiction, and the partnership with Medium is one way more of those stories might be seen by more people.â€
There are other players in the mix. Condé Nast has formed Condé Nast Entertainment, a division intent on using the company’s editorial properties to create or be a partner in television and film projects. In fact, the tip for the article about Mr. McAfee came from that division, and after Mr. Davis wrote the story, he worked with Condé Nast to sell it to Warner Brothers. “They did an amazing job,†he said.
There was some strife at the company as some writers signed contracts that surrendered any movie rights, while others, including Mr. Davis, declined to do so. But that seems to have quieted down.
The business model, both for Medium and Epic, is a bit murky, but it would not be hard to envision a case in which Epic becomes a hothouse for a certain kind of story with cinematic elements, and a studio or a production house cuts a first-look deal for it. Medium’s approach is tougher to game out, but Mr. Williams demonstrated at Twitter that if you build a compelling platform for content, a business will eventually emerge.
In his more optimistic â€" or grandiose â€" moments, Mr. Bearman sees Epic as a journalistic version of the original United Artists, which was formed in 1919 by Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith as a way of using their leverage as artists to cut a better deal in the marketplace.
“Maybe this is a moment, with all of these different platforms opening up, with new tools and new ways of telling big stories, when writers can get some control in the kind of work they do,†he said.
E-mail: carr@nytimes.com; twitter.com/carr2n
A version of this article appeared in print on August 12, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Magazine Writing On the Web, For Film.
Accounts
â– Kendall-Jackson Vineyard Estates, Santa Rosa, Calif., named Heat, San Francisco, as agency of record for Kendall-Jackson wine. Billings were not disclosed. The account had previously been handled by GlobalWorks, New York.
â– Special Olympics, Washington, named Y&R, part of the Young & Rubicam Group division of WPP, as its first global agency of record. The account will be led from the Y&R New York office. Spending has not been determined. Plans call for a campaign to be introduced early in 2014 that will include television, print, digital media, social media and events.
■Just Born Confections, Bethlehem, Pa., expanded its relationship with the Terri & Sandy Solution, New York, by naming the agency as the advertising agency of record for the Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews brand, sold by the Goldenberg Candy Company unit of Just Born. Billings were not disclosed. Terri & Sandy also creates campaigns for the Peeps candies sold by Just Born.
People
■Daniel Diez joined R/GA, New York, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, as global chief marketing officer, a new post, reporting to Bob Greenberg, chairman and chief executive. Mr. Diez had been senior director for global marketing and communications at Interbrand, New York, part of the Omnicom Group, where as part of his duties as editor in chief of Interbrand’s worldwide editorial properties he introduced a quarterly journal, Interbrand IQ.
â– Paul Ollinger joined Shift, Santa Monica, Calif., as president, a new post. He had most recently been vice president of sales for the Western region at Facebook.
â– Ruud Wanck, chief digital officer for the Europe, Middle East and Africa operations of GroupM, part of WPP, will also serve as global chief operating officer for the GroupM Interaction unit of GroupM, which is a new post.
â– Frank Pedersen joined Deep Focus, New York, part of Engine USA, as managing director, a new post. He had most recently been an adviser and consultant and before that was chief executive for the United States operations of LBi, which is now known as DigitasLBi.
â– Graham Ritchie joined Hill Holliday, Boston, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, as chief strategy officer, assuming duties that had been handled by Baba Shetty, chief strategy and media officer, who left in the fall to join the Newsweek Daily Beast Company, New York, part of IAC/InterActiveCorp, as chief executive. Mr. Ritchie had been a managing partner at Publicis Mojo, Auckland, New Zealand, part of the Publicis Worldwide division of the Publicis Groupe. Coincidentally, Mr. Shetty, who left Newsweek Daily Beast in June, also has a new job; he joined the Boston office of DigitasLBi, also part of Publicis, as chief strategy and media officer.
â– Eric Larson joined ePrize, Pleasant Ridge, Mich., as chief revenue officer, a new post. He had been vice president for customer experience solutions at the Chicago office of Oracle.
Miscellany
■Brownstein Group, Philadelphia, is expanding through the start up of a creatively focused agency named Nucleus Digital, to be led by Adam Deringer, chief marketing officer at Brownstein and previously the agency’s chief digital officer. Mr. Deringer’s title at Nucleus Digital will be partner and general manager.
â– Allison & Partners, San Francisco, part of MDC Partners, opened an office in Mountain View, Calif., to be led by Monika Raj, as managing director. The agency also has offices in cities that include Atlanta, Chicago, London, Seattle and Washington.
â– MediaPost Communications, New York, named an all-female jury to judge its OMMA Awards, for excellence in online advertising, for 2013. The choice of the 40 women came after Barbara Lippert, an editor at large at MediaPost, wrote a blog post complaining about the paucity of female judges at the 2013 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in Cannes, France, as well as at advertising awards shows in general. Ms. Lippert will serve as one of the OMMA judges.
■The Southern California Honda Dealers Association, as part of its Helpful Honda advertising campaign, has become an official partner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team, the University of California, Los Angeles Athletics and the University of Southern California Trojan Athletics. Financial terms were not disclosed. The sponsorships will extend the dealers’ event marketing program, which is centered on “helpful†activities like randomly paying for drivers’ gasoline and parking meters, to the sports team. Plans include offering free parking at Dodgers games to Honda drivers, giving seat upgrades at Galaxy matches and free washes for Hondas at U.C.L.A. football games. The agencies involved are Secret Weapon Marketing, Santa Monica, Calif., and Scout Sports and Entertainment, part of Horizon Media.