Summer movie season is upon us. Blockbuster after blockbuster opening, but don’t let that fool you – the movie theater is dying a slow death.

Now of course I’m not saying that movies are going to die, or that theaters ever will completely either, but as time moves forward it’s becoming increasingly clear that the cinema business in America is growing more and more reliant on rapidly rising ticket prices and a record number of sequels to spur business.

I studied film in college and love it as an artform, but the venue for displaying that artform is in trouble. In today’s world there are not only more distractions such as more movie-like television programming and of course the Internet, but the home theater is rapidly evolving into a high definition replacement of the movie theater.

50 to 60-inch High Definition displays are not uncommon now. Hi-def digital projectors are coming way down in price and going way up in quality as well so that soon the only limitation on screen size may in fact be the size of your wall.

Some would argue that seeing a movie with a large audience is a big part of the movie-viewing experience and appeal, but most everyone has horror-stories as well about ‘the guy who answered his cellphone’, ‘the baby in the R-rated thriller screaming their head off’, and the ’screen-talkers’ (those who feel the need to respond to what is happening on screen verbally).

Movies are about escapism, and to truly escape you need an environment conducive to that. The movie theater used to be the best provider of that simply with the huge screen, now the home theater seems situated to take its place. I’ve long thought Hollywood needs to think outside the box – something beyond raising ticket prices and pumping out more sequels – to correct this. Now it appears they may be – kind of.

The New York Times has an article today about the future of cinema – in 3-D. You read that and you think of a 1950s drive-in or Captain Eo at Epcot Center, but this is an evolved 3-D experience, one that has three of our greatest filmmakers, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, and James Cameron on board.

Gone are the red-and-blue glasses, replaced by a sleeker pair black pair of glasses. Gone are the campy films, replaced by things like a U2 concert in 3-D as was just shown at the Cannes Film Festival. It’s being taken so seriously that Dreamworks mogul Jeffery Katzenberg is predicting that by 2009:

“a significant percentage of the big mainstream films will be made and exhibited in this format.”

If that hold true, and this re-invention of 3-D cinema – one more concerned with immersion and less with cheap 3-D gags – does come through, it should resurrect the cineplex as a place to spend a night beyond the opening week of the few Hollywood blockbuster sequels.

You won’t be able to get this experience on a home theater (at least not for a while), you won’t be able to download or rent the DVD. Pirating will be much less or a problem, the industry will be fresh again.

Of course I’m not advocating for all films to move to this. I think the standard 16×9 2-D format will still very much live on as both an artform and key part of entertainment in the world. It is simply time for Hollywood to expand into new ideas beyond ticket price increases in order to save the movie theater before it’s too late.