I’ll only see a movie in 3D if it was at least partially shot that way.
I’ve only intentionally broken that rule twice: Pacific Rim (digital Imax 3D, I later saw it again in regular sized 2D with a friend of mine) and Gravity (real-d). Well, I also saw Jupiter Ascending in real-d out of some misplaced sense of wanting to support The Wachowskis in their crazy space opera experiment that was guaranteed to flop. Maybe it would’ve looked better if I’d seen it in digital Imax 3D (this was right before they started rolling out the laser system), but I thought the post-converted live action looked terrible. The natively-rendered-in-stereo cg vfx sequences, as with any 3D movie, at least looked okay.
I honestly think 3D is mainly there to squeeze more money out of the movies that are gonna make a killing anyway. Pre-2009 there would be be three or four screens showing the same highly anticipated movie all at the same multiplex. Now, when you’ve got a big movie like The Avengers opening, two of those four screens are the 3D version. That means whoever didn’t get their 2D tickets early enough are stuck either waiting for a later showing or just seeing it in 3D, and whatya think they’re gonna do? That’s what happened when I saw Guardians of the Galaxy with my friends, and it wasn’t even opening weekend! At least it wasn’t their first time seeing it, and I ended up liking the movie so much anyway that I took a friend who hadn’t seen it to a 2D showing. The 3D version at least looked decently good.
So, yeah, that’s the one time I involuntarily broke my rule.
It’s frustrating to see the studios pushing the 3D versions of these 2D-shot blockbusters on us while giving the shaft to intentional 3D movies like Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. That’s commerce, I guess.
The only shot-in-stereo movies I know of that are coming out this year are Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (entirely stereo, just like the last two) and Transformers 5 (mostly stereo, just like the last two). Alien: Covenant might have been shot in 3D but there’s nothing in the trailers or posters even advertising so much as real-d. Ridley Scott shot Prometheus, Exodus and The Martian all in native stereo, so it will be interesting to see whether or not he abandoned it for Alien: Covenant.