Jump to content
IGNORED

James Cameron Returns with Avatar

Vemsie

By Vemsie
in Film, TV & Radio

 Share

Recommended Posts

SeanR

SeanR

Posted
Posted
techically yes. but the CGI looked basic, and was very limited in its scope.

and those movies were not quite the revolution his were.

there was practically no CGI in film before Terminator 2. after that CGI had arrived.

was The Abyss before or after T2?

What about Young Sherlock Holmes?

And the dancing pepsi can in The Golden Child?

Eh? EH!?!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rubberducker

rubberducker

Posted
Posted
was The Abyss before or after T2?

What about Young Sherlock Holmes?

And the dancing pepsi can in The Golden Child?

Eh? EH!?!

these films sign-posted a possible new technology.

but terminator 2 delivered on the promise of what this new tech could do. the impossible could be achieved. and more importantly with-in a budget.

after that movie, every studio wanted it in their summer blockbuster.

anyway after reading that coming soon thing - it does sound like an amazing idea.

cameron may have a weakness for bill paxton - but he always delivers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 1 year later...
Major Britten

Major Britten

Posted
Posted

Seems like we wont be seeing anything from James Cameron until 2009 :(

"Avatar is a very ambitious sci-fi movie," said filmmaker James Cameron. "It's a futuristic tale set on a planet 200 years hence. It's an old-fashioned jungle adventure with an environmental conscience. It aspires to a mythic level of storytelling."

The Oscar-winning director spoke about his long-gestating, mysterious pet project in a recent interview with The Independent.

"This has been a dream project of mine for more than a decade, but when I first wrote it, the technology was not advanced enough. So I stuck the script in the drawer until the technology caught up," Cameron explained.

He added, "The film requires me to create an entirely new alien culture and language, and for that I want 'photo-real' CGI characters. Sophisticated enough 'performance-capture' animation technology is only coming on stream now. I've spent the last 14 months doing performance-capture work - the actor performs the character and then we animate it."

Now for the bad news, fans. "I'll spend many months completing the special effects on Avatar, and it will not be released until the summer of 2009. It's quite a challenge - and for that reason, I embrace it."

LINK

No mention of Alita though, wonder what is happening with that?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 3 weeks later...
Goose

Goose

Posted
Posted

We are GO for launch.........

LOS ANGELES…Academy Award®-winning filmmaker James Cameron begins principal photography on AVATAR – his first feature directorial effort since Titanic – in April 2007 for a summer 2009 release, it was announced today by Fox Filmed Entertainment Chairmen Jim Gianopulos and Tom Rothman.

Utilizing a blend of live-action photography and new virtual photorealistic production techniques invented by Cameron’s team, AVATAR will offer audiences a unique cinematic experience. AVATAR will be filmed in 3D for release in the new digital 3D format. With the continued roll-out of digital projection systems, the studio and filmmakers anticipate that digital 3D theaters will be widespread by the film’s summer 2009 release.

For AVATAR, Cameron will use revolutionary image-based performance capture techniques, and a real-time virtual camera system, to create new CG worlds and blend them with dramatic performances and live action in ways never before possible.

AVATAR is written by Cameron from an idea he nurtured for over a decade, while working on the technology necessary to realize its wholly imagined world. A return to the action adventure sci-fi genre that made him famous, AVATAR is also an emotional journey of redemption and revolution. It is the story of a wounded ex-marine, thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in bio-diversity, who eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival. It thus again combines the elements of massive spectacle and intimate character that made Titanic the highest grossing film of all time; a title it still holds by over three quarters of a billion dollars.

Just as he did with the then little known Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron wanted a new face to portray the lead, Jake Sully. Having searched around the world and screen tested a number of emerging young actors, Cameron has chosen the young Australian Sam Worthington, a rising star who has been recognized by The Australian Film Institute and The Film Critics Circle of Australia, in his homeland from such work as Somersault and Dirty Deeds. Zoe Saldana (The Terminal, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl) will portray the local woman Jake first betrays, then loves. Both actors have signed on for possible future installments as well, as AVATAR is conceived as a potential franchise. Other casting will be announced shortly.

Said Cameron, “For me, as a lifelong fan of science fiction and action, Avatar is a dream project. We’re creating an entire world, a complete ecosystem of phantasmagorical plants and creatures, and a native people with a rich culture and language. The story is both epic and emotional. The two things that make this film even possible are pioneering advances in CG effects and performance capture, as well as my 22 year relationship with Fox, since only with great trust can you operate so close to the cutting edge. I plan to honor that relationship by bringing them a winner. And I have the team to do it, the best team of artists and technicians I’ve ever been privileged to work with. This one’s going to be a grand adventure.”

“Every year, our business makes hundreds of films, most of which come and go. But a Jim Cameron film is different,” said Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos. “Jim’s movies raise the bar, both in storytelling and use of technology. AVATAR will do so again. The world he has created is breathtaking and the action breathless. It will take two more years, but in the summer of 2009, AVATAR will be a seismic change in the movie going experience.”

The film’s new image-based process of facial performance capture will get all the subtle nuances of the actors’ performances. The virtual camera system will allow Cameron to work intimately with the cast while seeing in real-time, as each scene evolves, the computer generated worlds and characters. This revolutionary approach allows Cameron to direct scenes with CG characters and environments exactly as he would on a live action set.

The edited performances and scenes, incorporating Cameron’s hands-on camera moves, will be turned over to Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning visual effects house Weta Digital (The Lord of the Rings trilogy). Weta’s artists will incorporate new intuitive CGI technologies to transform the environments and characters into photorealistic 3D imagery that will transport the audience into the alien world rich with imaginative vistas, creatures and characters.

AVATAR is produced by Cameron and Jon Landau for Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment. Principal photography will take place in and around Los Angeles, and in New Zealand. Live action will be shot using the proprietary FUSION digital 3D camera system developed by Cameron and Vince Pace.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Despin

Despin

Posted
Posted

Hey there.

"What's going to happen with the home release of the film? Surely that won't be 3D as well."

I have a feeling it wont have a home release. Not for a long long time.

Cameron has talked a lot about the "stereo" 3d system and how that and digital projection could rejuvenate the theatrical experience.. With what seems like more and more people not even bothering with the cinema now the home movie watching experience can be so good for a lot less money than it once cost.

It could take something special like "must see" 3d movies to get people up and out of their armchair and back into the cinema.

I think what could end up happening is that like in the old days where you could ONLY watch a movie in the cinema. Rather than the quick hi of a HUGE opening weekend and then quik drop off followed by DVD release we could see this type of mega budget 3d tent pole movie run for months and months.

There will always be early adopters and there's bound to be home units able to run the 3d movies.. But for the most part I think a big part of this new 3d "revolution" Cameron hopes kicks off is the very fact that it's a theatre exclusive product. You have to get up off your arse to go and see it...

And if anyone can make the kind of movie that could get people who dont normally go top the cinema, to get up and go it's Cameron.

Let's hope fox doesnt get cold feet at the amount of money it's gonna cost (i'm willing to bet it's costing WAY more than the 200 million they've green lit) and force Cameron to put out a standard 2d version of dvd/hd-dvd a few months after it's release in the hope of getting its money back quicker..

And then there's the culture we have now. Will people be happy about not getting a movie on dvd as soon as possible. There is a whole generation now who have no concept of not being able to get their hands on ANY movie they want at the very moment they want it. with downloads and net flicks and on demand i; easier than ever to watch any movie you ever wanted to see...

Like I said.. It's gonna take something special to break that kind of thinking.

Hmm.. A big old stream of consciousness waffle that was... Sorry if it doesnt make any sense..

Despin out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
K

K

Posted
Posted

Given how most films make the majority of their revenue on DVD releases, I'd be deeply surprised if Avatar didn't get a home release. They'd be crazy to restrict a film this expensive to one revenue stream – it's obviously going to be a big movie, but I don't think it's going to be have the same kind of mass appeal as, say, Titanic. Not even Terminator 2. A sci-fi film as deeply rooted in the genre as it sounds like Avatar is will always be a tough sell to anyone outside of sci-fi's core audience of young men.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 1 month later...
Broker

Broker

Posted
Posted

Given how most films make the majority of their revenue on DVD releases, I'd be deeply surprised if Avatar didn't get a home release. They'd be crazy to restrict a film this expensive to one revenue stream – it's obviously going to be a big movie, but I don't think it's going to be have the same kind of mass appeal as, say, Titanic. Not even Terminator 2. A sci-fi film as deeply rooted in the genre as it sounds like Avatar is will always be a tough sell to anyone outside of sci-fi's core audience of young men.

Isn't Terminator a Sci-fi film?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rubberducker

rubberducker

Posted
Posted

Hey there.

"What's going to happen with the home release of the film? Surely that won't be 3D as well."

I have a feeling it wont have a home release. Not for a long long time. etc

Despin out.

there will be home 3D far quicker than you think. technology is moving so fast anything done in a theatre will be fairly well reproduced with decent home equipment just a year or two afterward. things have changed, massively since hollywood tried to differentiate itself from 50's TV with colour and cinemascope.

i love going to the cinema - but the advance of technology has killed the market for it to be mass market anymore. it will continue to shrink and shrink until there is nothing left except specialist cinemas. people want entertainment on demand, on their giant plasma tvs and sounds systems. and the same will be true of 3D.

there's no way cameron's movie will stay cinema only - as it would be finiacial suicide.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 5 months later...
Goose

Goose

Posted
Posted

Lang and Rodriguez Get Their Own Avatar

Source: Variety

August 3, 2007

James Cameron has cast Stephen Lang and Michelle Rodriguez in Avatar, the director's new film scheduled for a May 22, 2009 release.

They will join Australian actor Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Wes Studi and CCH Pounder in the performance-capture pic, which is in production in Los Angeles. In October, the company will move to Wellington, New Zealand, close to Peter Jackson's Weta Digital, which is supervising the film's visual effects.

Lang (A Few Good Men, Defiance, Death of a Salesman) plays a seasoned Marine Corps colonel who travels to the faraway planet Pandora to take charge of its troops.

Rodriguez plays an ex-Marine pilot.

Avatar is a $190 million hybrid of live-action and animation. Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment team has researched a mix of live-action cinematography and virtual photorealistic production techniques which will feature virtual characters. Thirty-one days of live-action photography will begin on Weta soundstages in October.

The movie will be produced by Cameron and Jon Landau for Lightstorm. Mauro Fiore (Training Day, The Island, The Kingdom) has been hired as d.p.

Avatar will be filmed in a new digital 3-D format.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Use of this website is subject to our Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, and Guidelines.

  I accept