Director James Cameron has long been a big proponent of 3-D in movies.
The director pushed the envelope with his Oscar-nominated film “Avatar” and has said that he sees a time when 3-D will be as much a part of seeing a film as color and sound.
The director is pushing hard for 3-D to be the next big thing and that could be part of the reason he encouraged George Lucas to convert the “Star Wars” films to 3-D.
“George has been talking about this for a long time and it’s finally coming to fruition. I’ve been encouraging him to do that for years. He did hang back for a while. I think he was waiting for there to be a wide enough install base in movie theatres, and now we’re looking at the roll-out of 3D television,” he tells the New York Times. “I think he’s timed it wisely to a point where he can do the theatrical re-release and then roll right into a 3D DVD re-release. You don’t want to create a glut of your own product. He had only just, a couple of years ago, finished his whole epic cycle of six films.”
Cameron says that Lucas isn’t the only one who wants to go back and convert beloved older release to 3-D. He already plans to convert “Titanic” to 3-D and he might consider doing the same for “Terminator 2.”
But Cameron is also looking forward to the sequels to “Avatar.” As we previously reported, Cameron wants not one but two more films in the “Avatar” universe and he wants to film them back-to-back.
Cameron confirmed that he will do the sequels back-to-back with Coming Soon.
“Our plan right now is to do two and three as a single large production and release them a year apart,” he said. “In order to do that, we have to refine our technical processes beyond the end of where we were finishing Avatar one a year ago. We need to future-proof ourselves out five or six years to the end of the third film.”
“We’re evaluating how much of our techwork and how much of our facility work it’s going to take. That’s not decided as of right now. I’d love to just start on Avatar 2 right now, but I don’t know if that’s possible or if it makes sense to wait,” he added.
k9 says
OH MY GOD!!!! Cameron sounds like a broken record. I wish he would get off his high horse about 3D- STORY, STORY, STORY is the key. Notice how the re-realease of Avatar flopped really astoundingly for such a huge hit on the initial run. He will probably try to take credit for Star Wars in 3D!!!!!! .
Dave in NY says
Its time Cameron gets locked away in a sanitarium for His safety (Ours, really)!
Michael Falkner says
Really, this scenario is PR win-win for Cameron.
If the Star Wars 3D releases tank, then Avatar must have really been all that and a bag of chips. After all, they beat the Lucasfilm juggernaut, right?
If the Star Wars 3D releases soar, then Cameron bravely paved the way for major 3D innovations. It was good enough for Lucasfilm, after all.
This all makes me want to *headdesk*.
John says
I am truly torn on this.
1st, I really look forward to the rerelease so I can take my son to see them on the big screen.
2nd. I’m not fond of redone originals. They seem to have lost something after Lucas began to rely on tech instead of story(see a trend here) and the newer 1-3 episodes. Jar JAr. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
I really wish I still had those old LP sized laser discs of the originals from when I was young.