James Cameron is known throughout the world as the director of Titanic, the highest-grossing film of all time, though he is best well known by fans of science fiction as the man who brought us The Terminator and upped the ante for Ripley in Aliens. After years spent doing documentary films and co-developing the 3-D Fusion Camera System, Cameron is returning to science fiction in a big way with the much-anticipated feature film Avatar.
Cameron has said that his inspiration for the film was, “…every single science fiction book I read as a kid,” and that he hopes to shoot for a Edgar Rice Burroughs'
John Carter-type of film.
With little news coming from Cameron himself, we turn to other sources for information about this exciting project. In a recent interview,
Iron Man director and
Iron Man 2 producer Jon Favreau said:
“I went down and visited Cameron and he was working on Avatar
and I saw what that is going to be like…he’s really pushing the boundaries on motion capture, he’s integrating live action with motion capture and CGI. It takes a painstaking and technical approach to that.
He’s sort of tireless in how much he invests into it as far as his time and effort…I think that he’s trying to present [3-D films] in a way where it is a game-changer and in seeing it I think it’s the future.
I think AVATAR is going to be the kind of movie that’s an event that you have to go see and you want to see again just to understand what you’re looking at. And then you still have his very effective storytelling.”
Several dates have been tossed around and posters have emerged listing a “Summer 2009” release, but currently the film is being released December 18, 2009 in order to allow theaters to incorporate the new 3-D technology.