DreamWorks Animation chief executive officer Jeffrey Katzenberg said that Hollywood “greed” is responsible for a glut of lousy 3D movies and weak ticket sales.

Mr Katzenberg, speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in Colorado, US, also said high-quality 3D television without the special glasses will be available within four to six years but it will be 10 to 15 years before movie-goers can enjoy 3D without glasses. The former top Disney executive is one of the leading proponents of 3D in Hollywood and his California animation studio is responsible for hit films such as Shrek, Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda.

But Mr Katzenberg said movie-goers appear to have turned their backs on 3D at the moment.

“For sure, the bloom is off the rose for a moment in time, driven by a singular and unique characteristic that only exists in Hollywood: Greed,” he said.

“There were, unfortunately, a number of people who thought they could capitalise on what was a great, genuine excitement by movie-goers for a new premium experience, and thought they could just deliver a kind of low-end crappy version of it, and people wouldn’t care,” Mr Katzenberg said.

“Nothing could have been further from the truth.”

Mr Katzenberg said “Hollywood has managed to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory here” but he predicted a resurgence for three-dimensional film technology.

“With time we’ll get back there again, but it’s only going to come by understanding and embracing this as a creative, storytelling tool, and a way of giving an enhanced movie theatre experience, premium experience,” he said.

Mr Katzenberg said 3D without glasses would eventually be available on TV sets and in movie theatres.

3D “will come into the living room without glasses in an OK way in a very few years”, the DreamWorks CEO said. “It will come into the living room in a pretty high quality manner probably in four to six years.”