George Lucas along with James Cameron and DreamWorks Animation Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg spoke at a panel yesterday during CinemaCon where Lucas talked about the process of converting Star Wars over to 3D.

While the three men were all fans of shooting in 3-D, they also warned against making cheap, rushed 2-D to 3-D conversions. Lucas said he’s been working on his “Star Wars” conversion for the past eight years, at a sum that has shot past the original cost of making the movie. “There’s not magic wand or killer app that converts your movies for you,” said Cameron, who noted that one simply can’t convert a film into 3-D in five weeks; such a rush job was more like “getting 2.2-D.” Katzenberg added that today’s audiences are savvy to shabby conversions. “Bad 3-D devalues this opportunity for all of us.”

The first Star Wars movie to be released in 3D will be Episode I: The Phantom Menace which is slated to hit theaters in February 10, 2012 and then each of the films are supposed to be released in order at the same time each consecutive year, depending on how well the first re-release does.

Source: WSJ