Avatar done correctly

James Cameron are you watching?

Here is the original photo.

Source: Geekologie

Fantastic Voyage remake gets Paul Greengrass to direct

Paul Greengrass (Green Zone, Bourne) is going to be at the helm of the Fantastic Voyage.

According to Heat Vision he is in talks to remake the 1966 sci-fi film which is going to be produced by James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment. That will mean it is going to be 3D, which may be a good thing considering the type of tale.

The original film revolved around a team of scientists who are shrunk to atomic size and sent on a miniature submarine to save the life of a defecting Soviet scientist. The story then followed the biological adventures the team encounters in trying to save the scientist and themselves.

I am a fan of the original (mmmm Raquel Welch), but I think a remake will be worth watching. With todays technology it should look brilliant. I just hope that there is not too much shaky cam which Greengrass seems to enjoy.

I wonder if they will mix a bit of Inner Space in it by having an opposing sub sent in to stop the good guys?

Who do you want to see in the film and do you think Greengrass is a good choice to direct?

Avatar heading to Blu-Ray in April

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment today announced that the Blu-ray Disc and DVD of Director James Cameron’s history-making motion picture AVATAR will be released in the UK on April 26th.

The must-own AVATAR Blu-ray release provides the ultimate high definition experience for home viewing audiences. Recognized for its optimum picture and sound, the film’s masterful cinematography, art direction and visual effects lends itself to awe-inspiring clarity when viewed on Blu-ray Disc. The UK is exclusively releasing a Limited Edition Blu-ray available for pre-order only by online retailers containing 4 lenticular art cards and a ‘Survival Guide’ book.

Since its global theatrical release last December, AVATAR continues to make motion picture history. The Golden Globe® and Oscarâ winning epic is the highest grossing film of all time, taking in over $2.6 billion in worldwide box office, with £89.4 million from the UK box office to date. Director James Cameron takes audiences to a spectacular world beyond imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on a journey of redemption and discovery as he leads a heroic battle to save a civilization.

Written by Cameron and produced with his long-time collaborator Jon Landau, AVATAR stars Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldana, and Sigourney Weaver; as well as Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi and Joel David Moore.

Heavy Metal – Who is writing and directing the sci-fi anthology?

Been a while since there has been any movement on the new Heavy Metal sci-fi anthology animated movie. Now author Neal Asher (check out my interview with him) has some more info on who will be directing and writing the various sections for the film – some top directors involved. I wonder if Cameron’s would have any ties to the Avatar universe?

Pre-release Information – A $50 million budget 3D CG animated movie based on the magazine. This probably won’t have any stories from the first 1981 movie, however like the first one, it will feature around seven or eight different stories. Each segment will be directed by a different person. The title to this movie hasn’t been chosen yet. This current title is just a placeholder.

Main Crew:
Executive Producer – David Fincher and James Cameron
Producer – Kevin Eastman and Tim Miller
Director – David Fincher (1 segment)
Director – James Cameron (1 segment)
Director – Zack Snyder (1 segment, a story that Kevin Eastman wrote)
Director – Gore Verbinski (1 segment)
Director – Mark Osborne (1 segment, a comedy with Jack Black)
Director – Tim Miller (1 segment)
Director – Jeff Fowler (1 segment)
Director – Kevin Eastman (tentatively 1 segment)
Director – Guillermo del Toro (tentatively 1 segment)
Director – Rob Zombie (tentatively 1 segment)

Writer – Marc Laidlaw (1 segment)
Writer – Steve Niles (1 segment)
Writer – Joe Haldeman (1 segment)
Writer – Neal Asher (1 segment)
Writer – Kevin Eastman (1 segment, a story that Zack Snyder will direct)
? – Jack Black (a comedy segment that Mark Osborne will direct. No details on how he’s involved, but most likely will be an actor)
? – Jhonen Vasquez (no details on how he’s involved, but most likely will be a writer)

Which of the writers and directors excites you the most?

Source: Heavy Metal

2010 Oscar Results – Avatar will be Hurting

The results are out and Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker was the big winner. She is now the first female director to win best Director at the Academy Awards. Ben Stiller dressed up as a Na’Vi. Sandra Bullock is the best and worst actress and The Dude won best actor. Neil Patrick Harris opened the proceedings with a song while Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin hosted the show.

Best Supporting Actor:

* Matt Damon – Invictus
* Woody Harrelson – The Messenger
* Christopher Plummer – The Last Station
* Stanley Tucci – The Lovely Bones
* Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds

Best Animated Feature Film:

* Coraline
* Fantastic Mr. Fox
* The Princess and the Frog
* The Secret of the Kells
* Up

Best Original Song:

* “Almost There” from The Princess and the Frog
* “Down in New Orleans” from The Princess and the Frog
* “Loin de Paname” from Paris 36
* “Take It All” from Nine
* “The Weary Kind” from Crazy Heart

Best Original Screenplay:

* Mark Boal – The Hurt Locker
* Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious Basterds
* Oren Moverman and – The Messenger
* Joel and Ethan Coen – A Serious Man
* Pete Docter and Bob Peterson – Up

Best Animated Short:

* French Roast
* Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
* The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)
* Logorama
* A Matter of Loaf and Death

Best Documentary Short:

* China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
* The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
* The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
* Music by Prudence
* Rabbit à la Berlin

Best Live-Action Short:

* The Door
* Instead of Abracadabra
* Kavi
* Miracle Fish
* The New Tenants

Best Make-up:

* Il Divo
* Star Trek
* The Young Victoria

Best Adapted Screenplay:

* Neill Blomkamp and – District 9
* Nick Hornby – An Education
* Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche – In the Loop
* Geoffrey Fletcher – Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
* Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner – Up in the Air

Best Supporting Actress:

* Penelope Cruz – Nine
* Vera Farmiga – Up in the Air
* Maggie Gyllenhaal – Crazy Heart
* Anna Kendrick – Up in the Air
* Mo’Nique – Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire

Best Art Direction

* Avatar
* The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
* Nine
* Sherlock Holmes
* The Young Victoria

Best Costume Design:

* Bright Star
* Coco Before Chanel
* The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
* Nine
* The Young Victoria

Best Sound Editing:

* Avatar
* The Hurt Locker
* Inglourious Basterds
* Star Trek
* Pixar’s Up

Best Sound Mixing:

* Avatar
* The Hurt Locker
* Inglourious Basterds
* Star Trek
* Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Best Cinematography:

* Maurio Fiore – Avatar
* Bruno Delbonnel – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
* Barry Ackroyd – The Hurt Locker
* Robert Richardson – Inglourious Basterds
* Christian Berger – The White Ribbon

Best Original Score:

* James Horner – Avatar
* Alexandre Desplat – Fantastic Mr. Fox
* Marco Beltrami & Buck Sanders – The Hurt Locker
* Hans Zimmer – Sherlock Holmes
* Michael Giacchino – Pixar’s Up

Best Visual Effects:

* Avatar
* District 9
* Star Trek

Best Documentary Feature:

* Burma VJ
* The Cove
* Food, Inc.
* The Most Dangerous Man in America
* Which Way Home

Best Film Editing:

* Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron – Avatar
* Julian Clarke – District 9
* Bob Murawski and Chris Innis – The Hurt Locker
* Sally Menke – Inglourious Basterds
* Joe Klotz – Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

Best Foreign Language Film:

* Ajami – Israel
* El Secreto de sus Ojos – Argentina
* The Milk of Sorrow – Peru
* Un Prophéte – France
* The White Ribbon – Germany

Best Actor:

* Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart
* George Clooney – Up in the Air
* Colin Firth – A Single Man
* Morgan Freeman – Invictus
* Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker

Best Actress:

* Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side
* Helen Mirren – The Last Station
* Carey Mulligan – An Education
* Gabourey Sidibe – Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
* Meryl Streep – Julie & Julia

Best Director:

* Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker
* James Cameron – Avatar
* Lee Daniels – Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
* Jason Reitman – Up in the Air
* Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious Basterds

Best Picture:

* Avatar
* The Blind Side
* District 9
* An Education
* The Hurt Locker
* Inglourious Basterds
* Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
* A Serious Man
* Up
* Up in the Air

There you have it. Did they make the right choice. Should The Hurt Locker have won best picture? In 10 years time which will you remember the most – The Hurt Locker or Avatar?

Avatar – James Cameron’s Oscar speech has been leaked.

This made me chuckle. Click on the images to bigify them.

Source: Vanity Fair

Battle Angel Alita – James Cameron’s 3D adaption will have motorball according to Jon Landau

The last news we heard about the Cameron’s adaption of Battle Angel Alita was about some test footage for the film that may, or may not have been real.

Just to bring you up to speed, here is a little bit about what the story of Battle Angel Alita is all about:

Battle Angel Alita tells the story of Alita (“Gally” in the original Japanese version), an amnesiac female cyborg. This cyborg’s intact head and upper torso are found in a state of suspended animation by the cybermedic expert Daisuke Ido while he is out searching for useful scrap. Ido manages to revive her, and upon finding that the girl has lost her memory, he names her Alita after his recently deceased cat. The rebuilt Alita soon discovers that she possesses instinctive knowledge of the legendary martial art Panzer Kunst, although she has no other memories of her previous life. Alita uses her Panzer Kunst as a link to her lost past, which leads her to first becoming a mercenary Hunter-Warrior, killing cyborg criminals in the Scrapyard, and then a player in the brutal sport of Motorball. While pushing her limits in combat, Alita awakens memories of her earlier life on Mars. She becomes entangled in the machinations of Tiphares as one of their agents, and is sent to hunt those who wish to bring the floating city down. Foremost among these is the mad genius Desty Nova, who clashes with Alita before becoming her ally. Together, they take on the dark secrets of Tiphares.

Now we have some news that is a lot more reliable as it comes direct from the mouth of producer Jon Landau. He worked with Cameron on Titanic and Avatar so he knows what he’s talking about.

While speaking to MTV Landau went into more detail about the project. Firstly he would like the name to be changed to Alita and their biggest problem so far is deciding what part of Yukito Kishiro’s nine book manga series they want to adapt for the first film.

“We’re trying to pick what is the best story to tell,” explained Landau. “It’s sort of like when you do a biopic; you can’t really do a biopic that goes from cradle to grave, you have to pick out what is the important section in that person’s life, to tell that story.”

“I think we’ll tend to err on the earlier side, because it is the more fascinating side where Alita’s lost her memory and she doesn’t know where she comes from,” he explained. “And it’s when she discovers where she comes from, she’s terrified of it and doesn’t believe that that’s who she really is.”

“If people are familiar with the series at all, there’s something they call Motorball,” Landau said “That is something that Jim has always been dynamically excited about. It’s racing on a super track, with characters that are built and created in the cyborg world to race against each other in an arena.”

At this moment thoughts of the pod race in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace are ringing alarm bells in my head (the video below is to show some motorball and is nothing to do with the Cameron adaption – I just found it on a search through youtube).

“It’s almost like a gladiator match meets an Indy 500 race,” Landau added. “[Their mode of battle] depends on who they are. It depends how they’ve been modified as cyborgs; they’re not in cars — it’s their physical being that is out there. Some of them are on roller skates — and Alita participates in this, and she’s on roller blades, while other people might have different devices. It’s a wonderful, rich world to design and develop.”

At least with Cameron it should look good and they have an awful lot of story to choose from so the complaints about Avatar’s generic story should, hopefully, not be a problem with Alita. Oh and of course it will be in 3D.

“Jim’s gonna do all of his movies in 3D [from now on]; he’ll do even the smallest drama,” Landau confirmed. “I think even if Jim were to do ‘My Dinner With Andre,’ he would do it in 3D.”

Are you a fan of Alita? Will Motorball work in a film or should they choose a different part of the tale?

Tintin – Spielberg talks about why he went motion-capture

There is a great interview with Steven Spielberg over at the LA Times about his work on the Tintin adaption – The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.

It stars stars Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot, King Kong) as Tintin, Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings, King Kong) as Captain Haddock, Daniel Craig (Casino Royale) as Red Rackham and Nick Frost and Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Paul) as the Thompson Twins. Peter Jackson is producing it with the animation done by Jackson’s Weta Workshop.

“It was based on my respect for the art of Hergé and wanting to get as close to that art as I could, Hergé wrote about fictional people in a real world, not in a fantasy universe,” Spielberg said. “It was the real universe he was working with, and he used National Geographic to research his adventure stories. It just seemed that live action would be too stylized for an audience to relate to. You’d have to have costumes that are a little outrageous when you see actors wearing them. The costumes seem to fit better when the medium chosen is a digital one.”

They are using the technology from James Cameron’s Avatar so it means that it should look spot on and Spielberg could also watch the action on the digital sets as the actors went through the motions.

“I just adored it,“ he says. “It made me more like a painter than ever before. I got a chance to do so many jobs that I don’t often do as a director. You get to paint with this device that puts you into a virtual world, and allows you to make your shots and block all the actors with a small hand-held device only three times as large as an Xbox game controller.”

“When Captain Haddock runs across the volume, the cameras capture all the information of his physical and emotional moves,” the director said. “So as Andy Serkis runs across the stage, there’s Captain Haddock on the monitor, in full anime, running along the streets of Belgium. Not only are the actors represented in real time, they enter into a three-dimensional world.”

Fingers crossed that they get it spot on as I have fond memories of reading the Tintin books when I was a kid. The film is due out in 2011.

BAFTAS 2010: The Winners – The Hurt Locker beat Avatar and Moon did well

Well it looks as if we Brits preferred the exploits of the bomb disposal team in Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker over James Cameron’s Avatar. Bigelow’s film won best film and director, original screenplay, cinematography, as well as editing and sound awards.

Well done to Duncan Jones who won Outstanding Debut (that’s him behind the BAFTA award below).

BEST FILM
* The Hurt Locker
Avatar
An Education
Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
Up In the Air

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
* Fish Tank
An Education
In the Loop
Moon
Nowhere Boy

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
* Duncan Jones – Moon
Lucy Bailey, Andrew Thompson, Elizabeth Morgan Hemlock, David Pearson – Mugabe and the White African
Eran Creevy – Shifty
Stuart Hazeldine – Exam
Sam Taylor_Wood – Nowhere Boy

DIRECTOR
* The Hurt Locker – Kathryn Bigelow
Avatar – James Cameron
District 9 – Neill Blomkamp
An Education – Lone Scherfig
Inglourious Basterds – Quentin Tarantino

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
* The Hurt Locker – Mark Boal
The Hangover – Jon Lucas, Scott Moore
Inglourious Basterds – Quentin Tarantino
A Serious Man – Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Up – Bob Peterson, Pete Docter

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
* Up In the Air – Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner
District 9 – Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell
An Education – Nick Hornby
In the Loop – Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche
Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire – Geoffrey Fletcher

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
* A Prophet
Broken Embraces
Coco Before Chanel
Let the Right One In
The White Ribbon

ANIMATED FILM
* Up
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox

LEADING ACTOR
* Colin Firth – A Single Man
Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart
George Clooney – Up In The Air
Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker
Andy Serkis – Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

LEADING ACTRESS
* Carey Mulligan – An Education
Saoirse Ronan – The Lovely Bones
Gabourey Sidibe – Precious: Based On The Novel ‘Push’ By Sapphire
Meryl Streep – Julie & Julia
Audrey Tautou – Coco Before Chanel

SUPPORTING ACTOR
* Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds
Alec Baldwin – It’s Complicated
Christian Mckay – Me And Orson Welles
Alfred Molina – An Education
Stanley Tucci – The Lovely Bones

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
* Mo’nique – Precious: Based On The Novel ‘Push’ By Sapphire
Anne-Marie Duff – Nowhere Boy
Vera Farmiga – Up In The Air
Anna Kendrick – Up In The Air
Kristin Scott Thomas – Nowhere Boy

ACADEMY FELLOWSHIP
Vanessa Redgrave

OUTSTANDING BRITISH CONTRIBUTION TO CINEMA
Joe Dunton

MUSIC
* Up – Michael Giacchino
Avatar – James Horner
Crazy Heart – T-Bone Burnett, Stephen Bruton
Fantastic Mr. Fox – Alexandre Desplat
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll – Chaz Jankel

CINEMATOGRAPHY
* The Hurt Locker – Barry Ackroyd
Avatar – Mauro Fiore
District 9 – Trent Opaloch
Inglourious Basterds – Robert Richardson
The Road – Javier Aguirresarobe

EDITING
* The Hurt Locker – Bob Murawski, Chris Innis
Avatar – Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua, James Cameron
District 9 – Julian Clarke
Inglourious Basterds – Sally Menke
Up in the Air – Dana E. Glauberman

PRODUCTION DESIGN
* Avatar – Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg, Kim Sinclair
District 9 – Philip Ivey, Guy Poltgieter
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – Stuart Craig, Stephenie McMillan
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus – Nominees TBC
Inglourious Basterds – David Wasco, Sandy Reynolds Wasco

COSTUME DESIGN
* The Young Victoria – Sandy Powell
Bright Star – Janet Patterson
Coco Before Chanel – Catherine Leterrier
An Education – Odile Dicks-Mireaux
A Single Man – Arianne Phillips

SOUND
* The Hurt Locker – Ray Beckett, Paul N. J. Ottosson, Craig Stauffer
Avatar – Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson, Tony Johnson, Addison Teague
District 9 – Nominees TBC
Star Trek – Peter J. Devlin, Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer, Mark Stoeckinger, Ben Burtt
Up – Tom Myers, Michael Silvers, Michael Semanick

SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS
* Avatar – Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, Andrew R. Jones
District 9 – Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros, Matt Aitken
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – John Richardson, Tim Burke, Tim Alexander, Nicolas Aithadi
The Hurt Locker – Richard Stutsman
Star Trek – Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh, Burt Dalton

MAKEUP & HAIR
* The Young Victoria – Jenny Shircore
Coco Before Chanel – Thi Thanh Tu Nguyen, Jane Milon
An Education – Lizzie Yianni Georgiou
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus – Sarah Monzani
Nine – Peter ‘Swords’ King

ORANGE RISING STAR AWARD
* Kristen Stewart
Jesse Eisenberg
Nicholas Hoult
Carey Mulligan
Tahar Rahim

Do you think the British Academy of Film and Television picked the right winners? Which way do you think the Oscars will go?

Pictures from BAFTA

2010 Oscars – All the nominees in one photo

The 2010 Academy Award nominees attended the annual Oscar luncheon in Beverly Hills yesterday. Above is a photo of all 120 of them (click on it for a bigger version). How cool would it have been to be there?

Jeff Bridges is looking cool on the left, 2nd row up next to Sandra Bullock. George Clooney is on the back row next to James Cameron, 5th and 6th from the left and Quentin Tarantino is a few spaces on from them. Carey Mulligan and Gabourey Sidibe are on the right in the front row with Jeremy Renner, Kathryn Bigelow, Morgan Freeman, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman just behind them. There are many more people you will recognize.

I just think it is a great photo as is the one below showing all the best actor nominees.

The Best Actor nominees (Back L-R) Colin Firth, Jeff Bridges and George Clooney. (Front L-R) Morgan Freeman and Jeremy Renner

Check out the full list of nominees for the 2010 Oscars and whether Jeff Bridges will finally win an Oscar.

Source: Daily Mail