The week in 3D news
The week in 3D news
May 14
I’m exaggerating — this isn’t really a week’s worth of news. But, with Cannes officially underway, news has been flying thick and fast. So who’s ready for a big ol’ 3D update?
First up, Universal Soldier 4 is going ahead in 3D with John Hyams directing, Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren starring; shooting begins in October 2010, so expect a late ’11 release. Haven’t seen the first 3 (I thought there were only two… ) so I’m not qualified to exclaim or complain about this news.
Next up, Dario Argento, the giallo director who spent most of the 70s defining the slasher and horror genres, is set to shoot a “faithful” 3D adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. He’ll be shooting in Italy in January 2011, so expect a release at least a year after that. I’ve read Dracula, and from what I can tell no single film adaptation (not even Bram Stoker’s Dracula) has been anywhere near even 90% faithful to the book (for many reasons, including the fact that the novel is composed of a few dozen first-person letters, rendering the novel unsuitable to direct film adaptations); so I’m gonna take the “faithful” claim with a grain of salt.
Now to a 3D Judge Dredd reboot, penned by 28 Days Later’s Alex Garland and directed by Vantage Point‘s Pete Travis, rolls in Q4 2010 in Johannesburg. Not sure if that’s calendar Q4 or that other Q4, which is actually the first few months of 2011, but either way, don’t expect the film until 2012. I like the idea behind Judge Dredd — it’s pure sci-fi with a dash of irony, strongly remeniscent of Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi flicks (RoboCop, Total Recall, Starship Troopers); I’ve only heard bad things about the 95 adaptation with Sly in the titular role so fingers crossed for this one!
And finally, speaking at a tech convention in Seoul, James Cameron has identified the main obstacle in the path of the 3D revolution: the lack of content. Quoth he: “If you play all the 3-D movies in existence on your fancy new 3-D TV, it will keep you entertained for about 3 days. This content gap is the biggest hurdle for the rapid adoption of 3D TV.” Also, he says a release date for Avatar 2 will be released “in the next few months,” but that isn’t really news, is it?
With every man and his dog jumping on the 3D bandwagon, it shouldn’t take too much longer to extend those 3 days into a week, will it? Is it too much to ask for one of these 3D movies to be good?
