A spokesman for 20th Century Fox has denied an Internet report claiming Bryan Singer’s “X-Men: Days of Future Past” will be released in 48 fps.
Ain’t It Cool News reported Sunday that the sequel to 2011’s “X-Men: First Class” is employing the same high frame-rate technology Peter Jackson used on “The Hobbit.”
“The filmmakers played coy because of the negative reaction to the technology when the Hobbit film was released,” the site wrote, “but love the results and will be standing behind a theatrical release in high frame rate.”
Fox isn’t sure where the rumor came from but insists the story is false.
Compared to the industry standard 24 frames per second, the 48 fps technology is double the frame rate, thus the onscreen speed at which consecutive individual frames of a film are projected is much faster.
“The Hobbit,” which used the technology in limited release in December, received some backlash from critics and exhibitors this past year for its use of 48fps, claiming the high frame rate distorted the image of Jackson’s 3D film.
“At first, in the Smaug battle, I thought I was watching a videogame: pellucid pictures of indistinct creatures,” Time wrote in its review.
Theater owners were also required to install new software to project the higher-frame rate, a job that kept WB technicians busy until the very last minute.
Still, the studio and Jackson plan to release the rest of the “Hobbit” trilogy, including the “The Desolation of Smaug” this Christmas,” in the 48fps format.
“X-Men: Days of Future Past”, co-starring Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, arrives in theaters May 23.
