Is there a chance ROBERT ZEMECKIS will return to live action filmmaking?

Is there a chance ROBERT ZEMECKIS will return to live action filmmaking?

Mar 17

Remember back in the good old days when Robert Zemeckis was a director whose work you looked forward to?  The guy could seemingly do no wrong after creating the Back To The Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump, Contact and Cast Away.  Zemeckis was one of the few Hollywood directors who was able to combine his love for technology with the ability to tell a great story (something that I’m really scared James Cameron may be losing).

You could count on Zemeckis back then.

But In 2004, with the release of The Polar Express, this all changed.  Zemeckis introduced the world to a type of animation called ‘motion capture’ (whether it’s really animation is a whole other matter).  The general public is quite familiar with the technique now, but back then it was pretty much unheard of.   Gone was the need for keyframe animation – that’s the traditional style – instead we were treated to stiff, zombie like virtual actors.  The technique has been improved upon since then, but hasn’t really proven it’s worth until now, with the release of Avatar.

So, The Polar Express was an interesting experiment, but not much more.  It didn’t stop there though,  motion capture gave Zemeckis unparalleled freedom as a director.  No longer did he have to sit and wait for actors to have makeup applied, or to get the perfect lighting, he didn’t even have to set up a camera. All of this was done later after the fact, when the actors had delievered their perfomances and gone home.
What followed was a collection of films (Beowulf, A Christmas Carol) that improved upon the technology, yet still failed to reach the heights of Zemeckis’ previous live action work.

Now there are reports that Disney-owned ImageMovers Digital, the studio that produced A Christmas Carol, will be shut down in 2011 after the completion of its current in-production-feature Mars Needs Moms. This will result in the loss of around 450 jobs.  Unfortunate news to say the least.  It’s never a good thing to see such a large group of talented people fall out of work (all opinions of the films themselves aside, these guys are obviously damn good artists).  The official press-release from Disney reads as such:

Bob and the entire IMD team successfully built a state of the art studio and produced an amazing film, A Christmas Carol, at a time when the dynamics of the industry are rapidly changing. But, given today’s economic realities, we need to find alternative ways to bring creative content to audiences and IMD no longer fits into our business model

It makes sense and although A Christmas Carol performed okay at the box office, it was hardly a roaring success, not after the cost of R&D, production budgeting and marketing costs.

It’s interesting to see that this announcement has come after the release of Avatar.  Is it possible that Disney saw how advanced the motion-capture technology is at Weta Digital and decided that IMD couldn’t compete and simply weren’t worth the money?  It’s all speculation at this point, and we’ll probably never know for sure.

However, there is an interesting question that arises from all of this; What will Zemeckis’ next feature be?

He has already started production on a motion capture remake of the 1968 Beatles film The Yellow Submarine (a project which perhaps would have benefitted the most from this technology) although it’s future is obviously – for the time being – up in the air.  The way I see it, there’s roughly two paths Zemeckis can take.  Either he continues experimenting with motion capture and sets up camp at another studio somewhere, or he takes a break from the digital world and returns to live action filmmaking, at least for a while.

The latter option is most likely just wishful thinking on my behalf as Zemeckis has put too much time, money and yes, artistic effort into this technology to give it up so quickly.  Disney have officially stated that they want to continue working with Zemeckis, although nothing has been confirmed yet and such statements are often simply PR talk.

Still, I think the coming few weeks/months will be quite interesting, if for no other reason than to see who takes on Zemeckis and his crazy digital obsession next.