Writing from the set of The Hobbit, Peter Jackson took to Facebook Monday to blog his thoughts on filming at 48 frames per second -- the increased frame rate championed by folks like James Cameron, who will use it to blow minds in Avatar 2 and 3. Jackson is currently filming The Hobbit in 3-D at 48 fps instead of the industry standard 24 fps, and as a result, the Lord of the Rings follow-up will be the first wide release to pave the way into a brave new digital world of filmmaking -- whether or not theaters around the world are ready for it.
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If Screen Gems' upcoming post-apocalyptic thriller Priest feels a bit familiar to you, there's a reason: the film reunites star Paul Bettany with director Scott Stewart, with whom he made last year's avenging-angel apocalypse pic Legion. Produced on a relatively modest budget, Legion made $67 million worldwide but fared poorly with critics and, Bettany admits, suffered from its limitations. With Priest, however, he and Stewart aim to surpass their own benchmark and give audiences something that they haven't seen before: a 3-D post-conversion job worth the price of admission.
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Brian Taylor took a break from Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance duties to trek down to SXSW in support of SXFantastic entry The FP -- a film he describes as "a Jerry Bruckheimer action movie from the '80s" where said action is Dance Dance Revolution. His ties to the indie action-comedy trace back to his close circle of filmmaking friends: Director Brandon Trost is a frequent DP and collaborator to Taylor and partner Mark Neveldine, while actors from Neveldine + Taylor's Crank films also show up in The FP. Taylor rung up Movieline to share his love for The FP gang via phone along with details on Ghost Rider 2's new origin story, Crank 3, and how one might go about filming a 3D movie... on the iPhone.
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Our own Stephanie Zacharek warned you away from the waterlogged cave-bound 3D cheese that is James Cameron's (executive-produced Avatar technology-wasting favor-to-a-friend) Sanctum, and she's not alone: many more esteemed critics made it through the Aussie survival adventure with their spirits, eyeballs, and attention spans barely intact. Some saw Sanctum's terrible B-movie dialogue as amusing unintentional camp; will you be so lucky? Rappel down to the depths of Sanctum's most scathing critiques and survey the rocky terrain ahead.
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