By Jason Apuzzo. Yesterday we reported on how both: 1) Avatar: Special Edition tanked at the domestic box office, debuting behind Piranha 3D; and 2) how James Cameron had bad-mouthed Piranha 3D’s use of the new 3D technology as “exactly an example of what we should not be doing in 3-D.” Furthermore, and perhaps most tellingly, Cameron distanced himself from his own direction of Piranha 2: The Spawning.
Today, Piranha 3D producer Mark Canton (who also produced 300, another technically innovative thriller I liked) bites back!
As reported today at the LA Times’ 24 Frames blog, Canton has apparently fired off an open letter to Cameron on a variety of issues – including not only Cameron’s proprietary attitude toward 3D, but also the narrative problems with Avatar. Good for Canton.
Here are some choice excerpts from Canton’s letter:
“Mr. Cameron, who singles himself out to be a visionary of movie-making, seems to have a small vision regarding any motion pictures that are not his own … Let’s just keep this in mind Jim — you did not invent 3D. You were fortunate that others inspired you to take it further … To be honest, I found the 3D in ‘Avatar’ to be inconsistent and while ground breaking in many respects, sometimes I thought it overwhelmed the storytelling … Technology aside, I wish ‘Avatar’ had been more original in its storytelling.”
As you can imagine, I’m very much in agreement with Canton about this. You know what Avatar is without the cumulative impact of 3D, ILM and Weta Digital? It’s Green Zone. That’s the little secret Cameron wants to hide, and why he’s weirdly distancing himself now from his roots in the world of campy, Roger Corman-inspired cult movies like Piranha 2. Cameron’s above that stuff now, you see – because he’s got 20th Century Fox and a massive production apparatus backing him now. What a phony.
By the way, I’ve actually seen Cameron’s Piranha 2: The Spawning, and the original Joe Dante/Roger Corman Piranha – and, of course, Alex Aja’s new Piranha 3D … and I can tell you that Piranha 3D is easily the best of the three, and Cameron’s film is easily the worst.
Is that part of the subtext here? Could Cameron possibly be that venal – that he doesn’t like being reminded of his all-too humble origins … just as some younger guy borrows ‘his’ technology and makes an obviously better film?
Perhaps the true problem Cameron faces is that – unlike George Lucas, and unlike Peter Jackson – he’s just a litte too easy to copy.
[UPDATE: in the wake of Piranha 3D’s surprising success as a critical and cult phenomenon, we’re apparently now going to be getting Shark Night 3D, according to the Hollywood Reporter’s HeatVision blog today. The film is set in the Louisiana bayou, with the usual sexy teenagers as fish chowder. Also read today how James Cameron – with Guillermo Del Toro’s help – is about to ruin H.P. Lovecraft’s classic sci-fi horror novel, At the Mountains of Madness, with their new 3D film adaptation. A new, highly unflattering script review of that film is out.]
Posted on August 31st, 2010 at 1:26pm.
For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t say that Piranha 3D “borrowed” Cameron’s technology. To do that, it would have had to be shot in 3D — but it wasn’t, it was converted to 3D in post-production. And, as it happens, the 3D conversion was AWFUL. Not quite as bad as the rush job in Clash of the Titans, perhaps, but still bad enough that, between those two films and The Last Airbender, I’ve been worried for Harry Potter 7 and The Chronicles of Narnia 3 and every other 3D conversion heading our way. It’s getting to the point where I think audiences should demand that advertisers specify whether 3D films were shot in that format or converted to 3D after the fact — and, as it happens, the trailer for Resident Evil 4 makes a big deal of the fact that it was shot using the same 3D cameras that Cameron used.
Peter, I don’t know whether you are a regular reader of this site, but on countless occasions here I’ve said that if filmmakers want to use the new 3D technologies they really should shoot ‘natively’ in 3D. I am a big believer in that, because I don’t think you’re getting a ‘true’ 3D experience in these post-production conversions, no matter how well they’re done. [Btw, you’re probably in the minority in thinking Piranha’s conversion was bad – most people thought it was a major improvement on some of the more recent botch jobs like Clash. With a few exceptions, I thought they did a good job.]
With that said, when I say that Aja “borrowed” Cameron’s technology I am referring in a general way to the 3D revolution that Cameron’s Avatar has obviously inspired. It is also fair to point out here that Aja wanted to shoot natively in 3D, but was apparently concerned about what the extreme desert heat would do to the precision 3D optics.
Thanks for your comments, though, Peter – I appreciate your engagement here. Perhaps like you, I will be taking a close look at Resident Evil 4 in this context.
I know Cameron thinks he can do whatever he wants by badmouthing other filmmakers, but ultimately this kind of crap is going to create so much bad buzz about him behind the scenes that people will withhold the things he really wants – like awards and other stuff that needs the goodwill of the industry to happen. Yeah, they’ll work with him to make money, but they won’t do him any special favors.
True, Jeff. And this is also why he’s not going to get the Star Wars/LOTR/Star Trek-level franchise he wants out of Avatar. As I was telling another one of our readers, he’s just too angry to create the kind of warm, expansive universes that Lucas, Roddenberry and Tolkein/Jackson have created.
The only thing Cameron’s fish can bite is my ass.
I wouldn’t advise that, Powder. Fish carry a lot of bacteria.