It's been rumored for years, but it looks like Warner Bros. is finally going to convert the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz to 3-D. Thank James Cameron and the Titanic 3-D rerelease that brought in cruise ship-loads of money. Temper that knee-jerk reaction for just a moment and consider: Could Wizard of Oz 3-D actually be a great thing for cinema?
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It's been a frustrating four years for Joe Dante, whose latest feature, the kid horror flick The Hole, has endured a rough road to release since filming in 2008. The effective and spooky chiller, about two brothers (Chris Massoglia, Nathan Gamble) fighting the stuff of nightmares with their neighbor (Haley Bennett) after opening a mysterious void in their basement, was one of the first recent films to film in 3-D — but, as Dante recalled to Movieline, being at the forefront of filmed 3-D was ironically also what hurt The Hole's distribution hopes.
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Movieline caught up with the charismatic William Friedkin last weekend at the Seattle Film Festival, where the Exorcist/French Connection director received a Lifetime Achievement award and screened his brutal Southern-fried potboiler Killer Joe. Before he held court keeping a packed audience rapt with tales from his nearly five-decade career in film (highlights below), Friedkin stopped to discuss two of the topics he’s wrestling with these days: His legal battle to win back the rights to his 1977 pic Sorcerer, and the absurdity of the MPAA, which anointed Killer Joe with an NC-17 rating.
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In 1996, it arrived. Within a few days, it struck box office gold. And on July 3, 2013, it comes back...in 3-D! 20th Century Fox has announced plans to re-release Roland Emmerich's original destructo-blockbuster Independence Day next year in an extra dimension, because America apparently can't get enough of seeing Will Smith battle aliens. (Bad Boys in 3-D? Now that I'd pay to see.) Plan your 2013 '90s sci-fi flashback movie nights accordingly. [Collider]
Just about a month before hitting theaters (and right on the cusp of its theatrical marketing campaign), G.I. Joe: Retaliation has been pushed back by Paramount from June 29 to March 2013 to allow for a 3-D conversion. But director Jon M. Chu and the studio had deliberately opted for filming in 2-D before the 11th hour shift. So why opt for 3-D now?
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Jean-Luc Godard may not care about Hollywood or its Oscars, but we have apparently found some hardware he is into: The 3-D camera. This calls for a comeback!
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And I mean "amazing" — like the Hindenberg disaster or those nature-documentary Serengeti footraces that you like to watch when you're high and that always end in some poor gazelle's evisceration and you wish you could share the mindblowing experience with all your coworkers the next day but they'll never understand and anyway it's better to be discreet about these kinds of things though that doesn't make it any less amazing. But I digress: Kellan Lutz is going to play Tarzan in a performance-capture 3-D updating of the Edgar Rice Burroughs legend.
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Martin Scorsese has long proven his mastery of filmmaking, passion for storytelling and an infectious worship of the medium in which he's produced nearly five decades of singular, sometimes legendary work. Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that man of such fervency and skill would take so well to one of the rapidly developing hallmarks of contemporary cinema culture: Trolling.
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The people behind the Katy Perry phenomenon would really, really, really appreciate it if you took her more seriously... in 3-D, of course.
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Good news! Those annoying extra ticket price surcharges you've been paying to see movies in the third dimension could wane in the coming year, predicts Spotlight Theatres CEO Joe Paletta. Oh wait, there's bad news too: Regular old 2-D prices will rise to even things out.
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Heads up, romantic drama die-hards: Movie theaters will be awash with tears in the next couple of weeks. Three epic — well, two epics and one epic-lite — love stories are being re-released for various questionable reasons, and in these challenging economic times it might not make sense to rush out and see all three. Here, then, are some points to consider before buying a ticket and travel-size tissues for Casablanca, The Bodyguard or Titanic.
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This is real: Paramount is in talks with Magical Elves to direct their Katy Perry 3-D concert documentary -- as in Magical Elves, the producing duo comprised of Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz, who previously produced the Paramount smash Justin Bieber: Never Say Never in addition to creating reality TV "classics" like Project Runway and Top Chef. The film will follow the singer on and off-stage, with Footloose director Craig Brewer also onboard to executive produce. The question is, can Perry bring the star power and fan adulation that drove predecessors Never Say Never and Michael Jackson's This Is It to huge box office returns -- or will it take some fairy-esque magic to translate Perry's candy-colored pop persona into movie gold? [THR]
"'Metallica has always been a huge part of my life, and it's an incredible opportunity when we get to work with our heroes,' said Antal. 'We are going to harness the powerful and almighty energy of Metallica's live shows, inject a narrative into it, and shoot it in 3-D to elevate the entire experience.'" Of course they are. Whatever, it can't be any worse than Lulu. [Press release]
I wanted to believe James Cameron — I really did! — but it turns out that the 3-D conversion of his megahit Titanic is not only the craven cash grab we all feared, but it's also a visually drab re-rendering of an otherwise extraordinary technical achievement. Womp wooomp.
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The re-release of The Phantom Menace opens with that exhilarating blast of John Williams's famous theme, the Star Wars title zooming off into the distance in 3-D before the familiar text crawl creeps across the starry backdrop, revealing the words we've all been longing to see back on the big screen:
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