"Avatar" fans worried James Cameron would be distracted from Pandora because of "The Informationist" can calm down. The King of the World was back talking about the "Avatar" sequels at the world premiere of "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" in New Zealand this week.
"I want to get these scripts nailed down, I don't want to be writing the movie in post production," Cameron said. "We kind of did that on the first picture, I ended up cutting out a lot of scenes and so on and I don't want to do that again." The director said he hoped to be finished with the "Avatar 2" script and in front of cameras on the project by the end of 2013. That timeline jibes with what Cameron has said previously about "Avatar 2" arriving in theaters sometime in 2015.
Meanwhile, despite much criticism about Peter Jackson's decision to shoot "The Hobbit" using 48 frames-per-second technology -- double the traditional frame-rate for filmmaking -- Cameron said he might adopt the process for "Avatar 2."
"If there is acceptance of 48, then that will pave the way for 'Avatar' to take advantage of it," Cameron said.
The 48 frames-per-second controversy started when Jacksons screened footage of "The Hobbit" for exhibitors and media members in April. According to Badass Digest writer Devin Faraci, "The Hobbit" said the footage had "that soap opera look you get from badly calibrated TVs at Best Buy."
Continued Faraci:
"The footage I saw looked terrible … completely non-cinematic. The sets looked like sets … sets don’t even look like sets when you’re on them live, but these looked like sets. The magical illusion of cinema is stripped away completely.”
Commenting on the brouhaha, Jackson told HuffPost Entertainment that he wanted fans to experience the film in its full 48 FPS 3D glory, and not merely in segmented clips -- part of the reason he didn't screen 48 FPS footage at Comic-Con.
"The negative guys, the guys that say this doesn't look like film -- the guys who are in love with the technology of 1927 -- are sort of sitting there saying, 'But it doesn't look like cinema. This is not what we're used to seeing in the films.' And those stories rush around the world and no one talked about the footage," Jackson said during Comic-Con in July. "So, I'm not going to go to Comic-Con with 12 minutes of footage and have the same reaction. I don't want people to write about 48 frames. Forty-eight frames can be written about in December. When people can actually watch a full-length narrative film, everyone can go to town on 48 frames, because that's the form that you've got to see it in. And if you hate it, you hate it. And if you like it, you like it. I think most people will [like it]."
Of course, not everyone can go to town on the 48 frames look of "The Hobbit"; because of technical limitations, only a select group of theaters will show the film in 48 FPS. Whether that number increases by the time "Avatar 2" comes out likely depends on the response to "The Hobbit."
For more on Cameron, head over to AFP.
