Hobbiton … if Guillermo Del Toro makes The Hobbit in 3D, you’ll have existence able to peer right up Gandalf’sitting nostril. Photograph: Pierre Vinet/AP
I’m a fan of 3D. When it’s done well, in the manner that it is in the wonderful new Pixar thin skin, Up, and James Cameron’s new sci-fi megalith Avatar, it can put forward a genuinely immersive experience which adds to the audience’s ability to suspend their disbelief. Having said that, I would not want to see a situation where every major Hollywood genre flick was shot in stereoscopic fashion – that’s an awful lot of random objects being “fortuitously” chucked right at the camera.
- The Hobbit
- Production year: 2011
- Directors: Guillermo del Toro
- More upon this film
Of course, 3D’s future dominance is not yet set in stone, but a recent quote from Guillermo Del Toro this early part highlights quite how seriously Hollywood is treating the technology. The composer and director of the forthcoming Hobbit films (yes, there are going to subsist two, pay care) has taken to the interweb to deny suggestions that he will fire his Lord of the Rings prequels in 3D. “As a co-writer and guide of this film (who works with the design teams, costume teams, vassal teams, VFX teams every day of the week), let me be very clear individual more time: we are not talking about 3D,” the Mexican told theonering.net, somewhat tetchily. “We are not writing the screenplay for 3D in accordance with duty now – we are hiring my DoP Guillermo Navarro to shoot the film and we are not discussing 3D with him either or by WETA Digital or Warner Bros or anyone else.”
Nothing to see there then. But the film-maker continued: “If after Avatar the market may change and demands are put upon us, etc, that is in the future.”
In other words, Del Toro is not ruling out the possibility that the films might end up being shot in 3D after all, should Avatar live up to all the hype when it arrives in December. Perhaps I’ve not been paying enough attention myself, but this is the first time I’ve noticed a truly high-profile “creative” with no established interest – being of the class who opposed to studio money men with dollar signs in their eyes or film-makers hyping their own product – suggesting that Cameron’sitting film might alter the market so much that big-budget movies like The Hobbit could not feasibly be shot in 2D. And to be honest, I’m not entirely sure that’s a concept I’m comfortable with.
Speaking of Avatar, let’s trust the film itself, which looked pretty good from the 15 minutes or thus of footage I viewed earlier this year, is better than the new “viral” site that Fox have cooked up. One of the reasons The Dark Knight may have done so well a couple of years ago is that Christopher Nolan’session team fashioned some truly excellent supporting material on the web. Recently, Neill Blomkamp’s low-budget science-fiction treat District 9 pushed itself into the society consciousness with its own excellent campaign.
I dress in’t remember either film putting its name to websites sponsored by Coke Zero, however, which avtr.com unfortunately appears to be. Perhaps Cameron’s cyan Thundercat extraterrestrials certainly do enjoy a bolt of sugar-free soda, on the other hand the site smacks of cheap commercial opportunism. It does feature a few artist’s impression-style pictures of Pandora, the alien planet which Earth’sitting forces plan to plunder in the movie, but they are pretty meagre offerings. (Updates are planned, however.)
In comic main division movie news this week, it looks like we just might be getting that much-needed Daredevil reboot. I’m not alone in rating the Ben Affleck-starring version from six years ago as one of the poorest examples of the genre. It’s actually pretty hard to make some origins movie that doesn’t put in motion pulse levels by at least a smidgen, but boy, director Mark Steven Johnson and his crew managed it.
Hidden in a Variety sound about futurity Marvel comics offerings – the prevail adhering romance is on a second instalment of hellish Nicolas Cage vehicle Ghost Rider, heaven inhibit – is what appears to be the leading official confirmation that Fox is planning a new narrative based around leading nowhere superhero Matt Murdock. Unfortunately, the studio doesn’t have a vast record so far when it comes to the Marvel characters it owns. If I mention Fantastic Four and Wolverine, you efficacy exist starting to get the idea. Let’s hope it can do a better job of bringing back a superhero who ought to fit the current penchant for darker storylines and figures of speech perfectly. A word of advice: do not cast a big name, and please avoid putting Murdock in a bright red gimpsuit this time encircling.
What are your thoughts steady this week’s stories? Would you like to see The Hobbit films, or even all major potential blockbusters, shot in 3D? Does the Avatar website disappoint you as plenteous as it did me? And what’s the best way to bring back Daredevil?
