While it has been one of Hollywood's worst-kept secrets for years, the press has only recently gotten around to reporting and discussing James Cameron's attempts to convert theatres to 3-D – with aspirations of directing only 3-D for the rest of his career. And possibly changing all of Hollywood while doing it.

This has been Cameron's pet project for the last decade, and is the entire reason he hasn't made a feature narrative film since Titanic. You might ask yourself, "Why does he keep making all of these documentaries?" Because. He's a genius. He's been using these little documentaries to finance the development of 3-D technology so good that it dwarfs anything from the red/blue days – and even what IMAX has. The intention was to make 3-D so good people would want to come out to the theatres again.

Cameron looked into the future and saw that with the rise of home theatres, movie attendance would fall. At the same time, this newfangled internet thing was showing up, and rumor had it that within a few short years one might be able to download entire movies and watch them at home even before they were in theatres.

People called him crazy.

Well, you can't pirate a 3-D film. And even if you could, it's nowhere near the same as watching it with the glasses in a theatre. I mean, what good is a giant 3-D robot destroying a city if it's not 30 feet tall? So Cameron took off his magical hat that allows him to peer into the future and set about perfecting the technology that would make it all possible. Forget the old days of cheap movies given the red/blue process with gimmicky shots that seem to come out of the screen. Cameron wanted to make a $200 million, epic, science fiction movie that put you square in the middle of an alien environment. This wasn't just a movie you were going out for; it was an experience. And it was an experience that could save movie theatres from their long, slow fall from grace.

He's been convincing the studios to help pay to retrofit theatres and has been getting all of his ducks in a row to return to feature filmmaking, with a release in summer 2009. That's when the magic happens. That's when you'll get to smack down your $10 to see something unlike anything you've ever seen before. And if he does it right, you'll turn around and pay to see it again. This could be Star Wars all over again – something so inventive, so revolutionary, that it changes the way we look at movies forever.

And the chances of that are so good that Dreamworks has already counter-programmed its own 3-D feature film called Monsters vs. Aliens for the same weekend – in hopes of stealing some of Cameron's thunder and to get people to pay attention to their own project. Is it a stunt? It sure as hell is. But it's a stunt that is very telling. Cameron's onto something, and Hollywood is ready and willing to follow. One of these two companies is going to blink. But either way, we're getting two huge, 3-D blockbusters two summers from now. I'll buy the popcorn – you guys hold my seat.

Want another view on Avatar? Click Here.

Recommend (0)

|  Comments (0)

|  Email

|  Share

Share  Facebook Digg del.icio.us