While Guillermo Del Toro insisted that neither of the two parts of his adaptation of The Hobbit would be made in DRAGON-KILLING 3D back in last August, it appears things have changed. And by things I mean Avatar‘s box office.
First, his statement from last year, originally released on Lord of the Rings fansite TheOneRing.net, which is remarkably still going.
As a co-writer and director of this film (who works with the design teams, costume teams, creature teams, VFX teams every day of the week), let me be very clear one more time: we are not talking about 3D, we are NOT writing the screenplay for 3D right now- we are hiring my DoP Guillermo Navarro to shoot the film and we are not discussing 3D with him either or with WETA digital or WB or anyone else. That should be a little less sidestepping, I hope. If after AVATAR the market may change and demands are put upon us, etc that is in the future. But if such things happen and we start discussing 3D down the line, I’ll let it be know here at TORN because that’s the proper way of doing things. But make no mistake- I’ve been living in NZ for almost a year now and we have not been discussing 3D. When we do, I’ll make sure your source finds out. Thank You, Guillermo.
But as we all sadly know any bit of success with a film means that the studios immediately want to piggyback that success, never remembering that there were plenty of 3D films before Avatar that failed to bring in the big bucks, and leading to them wonder afterwards (when it fails to make a billion dollars) what went wrong. As he promised Del Toro updated the site once again with developments, and here’s his new statement as posted on TheOneRing.net.
I wouldn’t read much on it just yet, but now, after all this time, after AVATAR doing the Box Office it did, we have had enquiries from above about The Hobbit being in 3-D.
No impositions or heavy leaning. Just enquiries. Just fulfilling my promise to let you all know if discussions ever started.
Cheers
GDT
Gotta love the man. The first film is supposed to hit in December 2011 with the second part hitting a year later, but if 3D is planned this might get pushed back another year.
13 comments
gimmicky 3D makes a lot of money alright..
You would think with this franchise, they would have the clout to say; "Fuck you."
…how, in the Internet movie geek world, 3D has already come to mean "bad."
I don't think it means "bad" to most of us, it means "gimmicky". Avatar certainly used it well, and My Bloody Valentine 3D's use of it made a shitty film enjoyable. The overuse of it is certainly sad, though.
I agree with I love
As long as the movie is good, I don't care if it's in freaking 10D!
When will Hollywood realize that 3-D (as a rule) is nothing more than a silly gimmick, sure to wear out its welcome reeeeal quick with audiences. I don't get why it's such a big thing right now. Sure, Avatar changed things up a bit, I'll give it that, but the LOTR films strength were its stories and well written fleshed out characters, and while the CGI was leaps and bounds better than anything that had come before, the CGI was the secondary reason the films were successful. I hope GDT puts his foot down and by not getting pressured by the studios to jump on the 3D bandwagon just because everyone else is
It's gimmicky but it's also a ploy to charge more money. If it costs ten or twenty million more to do it, but you can charge 3-5 dollars more a ticket (or more sadly).
These movies are going to sell. You've got your LotR geeks (like me), GDT geeks (me again…), plus it's a book that was actually more famous than LotR before the movies came out. The Hobbit was almost required reading in many schools.
Anway, this gimmick isn't going to help the quality of the movie, but it will help in the sales.
If it's not shot in 3D but gets it tacked on in post, then they aren't getting my extra cash.
Even after Avatar, I still think non-animation 3D needs more tweaks before it is good enough for me to pay the extra money.
I think the Tolkien universe lends itself to 3D working more than any of the other AAA projects out there. In the way Avatar used the magic of the environment to be beautiful and scary at the same time. So if they spend the $$$ to do it right (ala Avatar), sign me up for $14. Maybe twice if it's the shit. +Brownies.
"…the LOTR films strength were its stories and well written fleshed out characters…" – And what makes you think The Hobbit won't have those things as well? It's not like Roland Emmerich is writing and directing. The thought of two expert world-builders like Jackson and Del Toro working in 3D is pretty fucking awesome.
The 3D process might fuck up the re-scaling of the actors also? Everything learned from LotR could be lost as they'd have to R&D everything all over again to see what works with the new cameras and what doesn't.
I have now lost any interest in seeing this.
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