Posts Tagged ‘Avatar’

Nolan Explains Why New Batman Film Is Not In 3D

Jan 13 |12:00

Innovations.FindTechNews.net writes:

Nolan is one of the hottest directors in Hollywood but he has been unwilling to get involved with the push to make movies in 3D.  He insists that he is not against 3D, but told Deadline that you “have to look at the story you’re telling,” admitting that Inception was, at one point, a candidate for conversion.

3D Inception

“We looked at shooting Inception in 3D and decided we’d be too restricted by the technology,” said Nolan in the interview.

“We wouldn’t have been able to shoot on film the way we’d like to. We looked at post-converting it, actually did some tests, and they were very good.  “But we didn’t have time to do the conversion that we would have been satisfied with Inception deals with subjectivity, quite intimate associations between the audience and the perceived state of reality of the characters.”

Flatman?

Nolan’s next film is the sequel to Batman Begins and The Dark Knight – Dark Knight Rises, but the film will not be in 3D.

“In the case of Batman, I view those as iconic, operatic movies, dealing with larger-than-life characters. The intimacy that the 3D parallax illusion imposes isn’t really compatible with that,” added Nolan.  “We are finishing our story on the next Batman, and we want to be consistent to the look of the previous films. There was more of an argument for a film like Inception.”

Avatar

Nolan was a fan of James Cameron’s Avatar - a film that will be credited as one of the key landmarks of the modern 3D movement – but it was the CGI rather than the 3D that enthused the filmmaker.  “I’ve seen work in 3D like Avatar that’s exciting. But, for me, what was most exciting about Avatar was the creation of a world, the use of visual effects, motion capture, performance capture, these kinds of things.  “I don’t think Avatar can be reduced to its 3D component, it had so much more innovation going on that’s extremely exciting.  “3D has always been an interesting technical format, a way of showing something to the audience. But you have to look at the story you’re telling: is it right?”

Image Credit:  t3.gstatic.com

 

Seven-Day Summary: ‘Fockers’ Barely Beats ‘Grit’

Jan 10 |12:00

Ray Subers, BoxOfficeMojo.com writes

This near-miss combined with the lack of new releases resulted in the top four spots remaining unchanged this week. Overall box office was down a whopping 25 percent from last year, when Avatar dominated with $96.9 million.

Little Fockers added $33.4 million to bring its 16-day total to $110.2 million. Its 47 percent decline was the steepest for any movie in nationwide release and was notably worse than Meet the Fockers‘s drop at the same point. Its total also lagged way behind Meet the Fockers‘s $175.8 million, and it’s trailing Meet the Parents in estimated attendance.

True Grit dropped 35 percent to $33.2 million for a total of $95.4 million. That makes it the fifth-highest grossing Western-themed movie on record, not accounting for ticket price inflation, and it’s poised to become the first traditional Western to pass the $100 million mark since Unforgiven in 1992.

In its third week, Tron Legacy was off 42 percent to $25.6 million. With its $138.1 million total, it will top the final tally of The Matrix Revolutions by the end of the day. Finishing in fourth place, Yogi Bear eased 39 percent to $15.4 million for a total of $68.8 million.

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Image Credit:  FilmBoynt.com

 

Weekend Report: ‘True Grit’ Captures Lead

Jan 10 |06:00

Photo & Article, Brandon Gray, BoxOfficeMojo.com

True Grit claimed the top spot, ending the reign of Little Fockers over a quiet start to 2011, while new nationwide releases Season of the Witch and Country Strong posted modest results. Overall business was off a precipitous 29 percent from the same weekend last year, when Avatar led.

Steadily galloping along, True Grit collected an estimated $15 million, cooling 39 percent from New Year’s weekend. The Western has racked up a mighty $110.4 million in 19 days, surpassing the final grosses of Unforgiven and Maverick. In terms of estimated attendance, it topped Brokeback Mountain on Saturday, and it eclipsed Tombstone on Sunday (Unforgiven and Maverick will likely prove insurmountable on this front).

Little Fockers claimed an estimated $13.8 million, off 46 percent for a $124 million sum in 19 days. Predecessor Meet the Fockers grossed $28.5 million on the same weekend (day and date) in 2005, was down 32 percent and had tallied $204.3 million to date with more than double the attendance.

Season of the Witch conjured an estimated $10.7 million on approximately 3,000 screens at 2,816 locations, which wasn’t as cursed as its genre and positioning might have suggested. Medieval movies often struggle at the box office, and Season of the Witch made more in two days than The Last Legion did in its entire run. Season marked the second release from distributor Relativity Media, and, on the bright side, blazed past their first The Warrior’s Way, which has made just $5.6 million. It also wasn’t the nadir of star Nicolas Cage‘s career, opening higher than recent lows like The Wicker Man, Bangkok Dangerous and Next. Relativity’s exit polling indicated that Season‘s audience was 52 percent male and 61 percent aged 25 years and older.

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January 2011 Preview

Jan 3 |12:00

Photo & Article, Ray Subers, BoxOfficeMojo.com

With a few exceptions, that seems to be the case again in January 2011. Without an Avatar-like holdover from December, it’s inevitable that January 2011 will fall short of January 2010′s record-setting $1.06 billion gross.

Jan. 7

The first weekend of January finds Nicolas Cage movie Season of the Witch facing the planned nationwide expansion of Country Strong. Season of the Witch, which was delayed from March 2010, doesn’t seem to have much going for it. Medieval-set movies that don’t involve Robin Hood rarely make much money, and Mr. Cage’s drawing power has been spotty, including relatively soft returns for Kick-Ass ($48.1 million) and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice ($63.2 million). Additionally, Season marks distributor Relativity Media’s second nationwide release following The Warrior’s Way, which was botched so badly that it earned less than $6 million since opening early December.

Country Strong, on the other hand, targets the same underappreciated Southern audiences that helped turn The Blind Side in to one of the biggest box office successes in recent years, and, between a performance at the Country Music Awards and a guest spot on Glee, star Gwyneth Paltrow has been relentlessly showing off her vocal talents. Country Strong is positioned similarly to the country music drama Crazy Heart from last year, which earned $39.5 million.

I Love You, Phillip Morris was also scheduled to expand nationwide on Jan. 7, though that’s in doubt after the movie’s lukewarm take in limited release.

Jan. 14

Arguably the two most anticipated movies of January, The Green Hornet and The Dilemma, are scheduled to go head-to-head on Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend. The Green Hornet has had a lengthy marketing campaign dating back at least to Comic Con in July, and will receive a ticket-price boost from its 3D and IMAX 3D presentations. However, the trailers and commercials awkwardly blend superhero action and Seth Rogen comedy, which may ultimately confuse and turn off prospective audiences.

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3D Boom Added Depth – Visually

Jan 2 |06:00

Nick Chordas, Dispatch.com writes:

Five of the 10 top-grossing movies of the year were released in 3-D, which comes with a price hike at the ticket kiosk.

Yet all 3-D products proved not to be created equal. Movies shot in standard 2-D and quickly converted to 3-D to capitalize on the craze – such as Clash of the Titans and The Last Airbender – alienated at least a few viewers who paid the extra bucks only to discover less-than-stellar effects.

It probably also didn’t help that the movies weren’t any good.

Technically, the highest-grossing film of 2010 was Toy Story 3, which earned $415 million at the box office. In reality, Avatar, directed by James Cameron and released in December of last year, did most of its record-breaking business in 2010 – amassing $760 million to pass Titanic as the domestic leader.

(When figures are adjusted for inflation, Gone With the Wind still holds a healthy lead at $1.6 billion – take that, Na’vi.)

Superheroes (Iron Man 2), vampires (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse) and wizards (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1) were once again popular, while moviegoers hungering for something a bit more thoughtful from the Hollywood machine looked to Leonardo DiCaprio, who headlined Shutter Island and Inception.

A rash of sequels, remakes and reboots with origins in the 1980s (The A-Team, The Karate Kid, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Tron: Legacy, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps) produced a mixed bag.

Studios also promised the end of both the Saw and Shrek franchises, which added their seventh and fourth entries, but moviegoers have heard such vows before.

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Image Credit: Diszine.com