Cameron's "Avatar"

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You’re in AVATAR, right? Can you tell me anything about it?

JOEL: Yeah, we’ve been shooting about six months here, and we shoot all the way until the middle of ‘08, that will have been about a year of shooting, and it’s just great, it’s going to change movie-making. It’s such a beautiful concept, and James Cameron is- it’s amazing working with one of the biggest directors of all time. He still holds the trophy on box office, and it’s pretty cool knowing we’re going into a film that’s going to have a lot of buzz and a lot of expectations, and I believe we meet them all with this movie... It’s sci-fi but it’s a different kind of sci-fi. When I read the script for the first time, they locked me in a room and had me sign my life away... It’s really on a different level of filmmaking - not only in the technology that they’re using - the 3-D, the motion-capture and everything that they’re doing to support the beautiful story - but it’s very politically relevant, and the love story is captivating, because it’s about two different types of creatures coming together trying to learn each other, and coming under the gun of a military force that’s coming down upon them. It’s really special, it’s going to change the way people are viewing movies and the way people can be entertained.
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http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=17583
 
argh...i didn't need to read that. 2009 can't get here soon enough.
 
We may finally be in store for something brand new that we've never seen before on screen. Damn, it's been long enough...
 
cameron always has something groundbreaking.

terminator ,abbys,termonator 2 and titanic. ok true lives wasnt but this looked like a movei that he made for fun.
 
Which it was. I love Cameron's work and I've been following this project vigorously awaiting to see it on screen.
 
I do not know if I am excited about this movie yet or not, because we still know next to nothing about it. All we're hearing so far is "It's revolutionary!" and "This is movie history in the making!", and while I understand people would be enthusiastic for a Cameron project, it's common practice in showbiz to toot one's own horn. I really want to know more about this movie, because I think it could be amazing, but I have nothing to base that on yet other than Cameron directing and some supposedly revolutionary new technology powering it.

If this movie uses CG actors though, it looses interest points from me. I understand that some directors *cough*Zemeckis*cough* are very thrilled to play with a new toy that they don't yet understand, but I do not like the notion that using a digital puppet of an actor for 10x the price of filming a real actor on set is somehow an improvement in the film making process. We shall see what Cameron has up his sleeve, but hopefully there will be actual actors on the screen in this movie.
 
Not all of the actors will be CG. Only the ones playing aliens :D
 
i giggled at that electrix
 
Another Interview...its a biggie! :)

Quint: Speaking of being in a ridiculous situation, aren’t you working with James Cameron now?

Joel Moore: [Laughingly] That is a ridiculous situation, ridiculous in the fact that I could never ever dream that I would be working with the biggest director…

Quint: I got to meet Cameron at the Santa Barbara Film Festival a couple of years ago and that was just the coolest thing ever. I got to sit down and just talk and I totally just geeked out about ALIENS and I probably freaked him out, because there was a point were he was like “Well you know I’ve directed other movies besides ALIENS” and I was like “Dude, I have TERMINATOR posters and stuff, too. I love all of your movies, TRUE LIES… that’s great, but ALIENS is the tip of the top for me, so…

Joel Moore: (laughs) And I’m sure ALIENS is probably the one that he feels less… he created TERMINATOR… he created THE ABYSS… he created, like you said, TRUE LIES and all of these and the whole franchise of TERMINATOR is because of him. ALIENS is actually a sequel that he wrote to a movie that he really liked which shows how creative and passionate he is, but it’s probably the one that he has the least control over, I guess.

In conversation with him, he loves the movie and it’s a big part of his success was making that and because I’m working with Sigourney Weaver as well, they have some stories about that and…

Quint: That’d blow my mind man, that’s so cool.

Joel Moore: Yeah, I’m her right hand man in the movie, but yeah they talk about how… they give great stories about how they were on set together and the **** that happened and the fact that this was a sequel and Sigourney didn’t even know that there was going to be a sequel to ALIEN. She had no clue and Jim wrote this great treatment or script for it and ended up making it and then it sort of turned into a franchise because of him writing the sequel, which I thought was pretty cool.

I think he had already done TERMINATOR by the time he went and directed…

Quint: Yeah, I think he got the gig for ALIENS when he was wrapping up TERMINATOR, if I know my nerd history.

Joel Moore: You’re very right, but Sigourney… it’s such an honor to be in the position that I am in and coming from all of these comedies and movies that people don’t necessarily take seriously, which is fine because they are still entertaining, it’s such a blessing to be a part of something that is so big. It’s literally going to change the history of filmmaking, this movie. It’s crazy and the stuff that we are doing on set and the technology that is involved and the way that Jim’s concept of making this movie is A) completely different than any other movie that I’ve done or anybody has done, just because of the technology involved and B) the story that he is telling and the vision that he has created for it is captivating and not just because it’s 3D or because we are using this whole different motion capture type of thing, it’s because…

I read the script when we were meeting at first and they locked me in a room and made me sign my life away and said “We will start with your pinkies if you say anything,” but I literally was, and I knew that outside of his history and outside of TITANIC, there was a bunch of Sci-Fi stuff that he had done and that’s awesome, because I’m a fan and I had loved those movies, but I thought “OK cool, another huge 200 million dollar Sci-Fi movie… this is awesome and a great thing to be a part of,” but it’s actually this beautiful love story and it’s very politically relevant and it’s almost a coming of age for humanity story. It’s just so developed at all of these different levels and I literally teared up a couple of times just reading the script. It was such a great script. I was so surprised, not that he couldn’t make anything like this, but surprised that it was this. I didn’t think it was this kind of a movie. I thought Sci-Fi from the way that when I had met on the film originally on the phone that they had explained it and I’m sure everybody in the world right now thinks that it’s Sci-Fi, but it’s so much more than that.

Quint: Everybody assumes in Cameron’s Sci-Fi that there’s going to be good action, but at the same time you look at what he did in ALIENS and THE ABYSS, especially THE ABYSS. THE ABYSS is such a character movie all about relationships and all about the emotion.

Joel Moore: This does have a little bit of that in it, if you were to liken it to anything else that he has done. It’s just on such a bigger level, because you’ve got these crazy LORD OF THE RINGS size action sequences in it and it’s that kind of a movie as well.

To be able to put all of that together in one movie is ****ing hard and that’s what I think was so impressive to me personally, because I read a lot of scripts and you never see people successfully put all of these things together, you kind of have to pick and choose. If you’re a big budget movie and you are wanting to be a love story, you be a love story. If you want it to be an action movie, you be TRANSFOMERS, you know? You can still have a love story, but it’s just… it’s really cool that all of it happens in the same movie. I’m sorry. I know that I’m being very vague, but…

Quint: No, I understand. I don’t want you to lose your pinkies.

Joel Moore: Exactly, but working alongside Sigourney is such a crazy honor and she couldn’t be nicer and Jim couldn’t be a better director. In as much as directing and filmmaking goes, I honestly can’t imagine ever working with a better director. He doesn’t take lunches. He’s editing on his lunch breaks. He is the hardest working person on set. When other people are on a tiny little break and the people are kind of… like if there’s a computer crash or a whatever is going on, there is people just waiting around to see what’s going to happen next and he’s up and going, sketching a new sketch, creating a new part of the land that we are on and just doing whatever there is to be done; he can’t sit down. They literally have to bring lunch in to him and put it in front of him so that for whatever he is doing he can just walk around and eat a sandwich as he’s going.

Quint: I’ve heard that, because there’s lots of horror stories about him being a really tough director, but each and everyone of them that I have ever heard has always had an epilogue to the story saying “but at the same time, he’s also not somebody who is doing this for any other reason and he’s doing so much work himself that he expects a level of quality from the people around him.”

Joel Moore: Yeah and it’s funny that there are all of these… because that’s what people say to me to and my only response is “If that’s the case, then why is every person that I’m working with, the whole crew, has been his crew for the last twenty years? If that’s the case, then why are all of these people back?”

They understand there is a very much militant attitude toward getting the job done, but I think that, just like I do, they appreciate that and that isn’t always roses and “Can you pleases.” That’s a little bit of “OK, let’s get this… Go do that and let’s get this done.” It’s just like that with us, he is never rude but always “here we are. This what we’re going to do. This is where we are… But he is always careful with his talent, because he knows that the talent are the people that are driving what’s going to happen for the day.

He takes a special reservation for the talent and I’m honored to be a part of that reservation, because it’s really a story about a few of us that are going to another planet and it’s me and Sam Worthington and Sigourney that are scientists and Sam’s a marine and we are going to this other planet to sort of assimilate into another society. Because of that, a lot of it happens around us… like I have a girlfriend in this and it’s not an ugly German with a unibrow, like DODGEBALL, it’s a different thing. It’s Michelle Rodriguez and she’s hot.

Quint: And she definitely does not have a unibrow.

Joel Moore: She doesn’t have a unibrow.

Quint: I spent a lot of time in New Zealand and on RINGS I got to watch Andy Serkis work a lot, but I’m hearing that, like you are saying, this is a different mo-cap thing. Is that…?

Joel Moore: Well, we are working with WETA, the famed company that did all of Andy’s stuff and all of Peter Jackson’s stuff of course, but the technology that is involved with what we are doing is on a different level and even WETA would say the same thing. They’re part of the reason that the technology is on a different level.

They have a daunting year ahead of them to make all of this happen, but I think that they’re excited to be able to put all of the pieces together as well, because it’s such a challenge. This is going to look like no other film has ever looked and there’s something that I’m sure is special to that, just like when they were making LORD OF THE RINGS, I’m sure they thought “This is going to go down in history as one of the best trilogies ever.” I think they can look at AVATAR after a ten year break of James Cameron making movies, he come to this one which he’s had in the works, you know he wrote this thing ten or twelve years ago or at least the treatment for it and he had to wait for technology to catch up to him to be able to make it, so I think that there’s also this great and captivating part of the project that is special to them as well.

Quint: I’ve heard that he has actually been shooting live action as well as doing mo-cap stuff?

Joel Moore: Yeah, there is definitely live-action stuff as well.

Quint: That’s awesome.

Joel Moore: Yeah its pretty cool. I’m excited, we are going to New Zealand for a couple months and the New Zealand side… it’ll just be fun to be over there because I am a geek as well and I want to see all of the Weta stuff…

Quint: It’s great. I love Wellington so much. Brilliant place and the people are just so nice. The guys at Weta are the coolest people in the world. Richard Taylor, Gino Acevedo… everybody there is just so talented, but zero ego.

Joel Moore: That’s cool. I’m excited. It’s fun because I’ve been really blessed to be able work with really great directors and it’s funny, there’s a lot of what I see in James there’s a lot of that in Adam. There are two kinds of directors that you work with. I don’t want a director that doesn’t work as hard as I’m working on a film, you know? I don’t trust the outcome and we are putting our name and our acting in their hands and that’s what I appreciate about Adam, that there is such a passion and he is doing the same thing and not taking lunches, he’s on set running around trying to get all of these shots and all of these units and I just had a comfort that the end product, while it is this genre… kind of a strange thing that he’s doing, I just had a comfort that it was going to turn out well and not make me look bad

Quint: There’s also a level of you see a lot of filmmakers who are in it for other reasons, like the glory of being “the director” or they are in it for the parties or they are in it for the money or the fame or whatever. I don’t know Adam, I met him briefly at FANTASTIC FEST when we showed the movie, but my immediate impression was that he was genuinely there because he loved film and he was so proud to be a part of this thing that he loves. I think that’s such a good place to come from and it’s becoming an increasingly rare place to come. I just see lots of young filmmakers that are in it for other reasons than because they actually love and want to create film.

Joel Moore: I have, too, and I think that there’s a big difference as an actor between working with those kind of directors and working with a director who just wants for you and the movie the best possible product and there’s a wisdom in it, too. There’s understanding your crowed and understanding the specific audience you are trying to hit. There’s an understanding with the way to attack press and buzz and news and I think that there are people who get that side of this ridiculous game and there are people who don’t and that’s fine for the people who don’t, but I think that’s what it takes to be successful in this business, even as an actor, as an actor or a filmmaker. It’s the way that we had to attack SPIRAL.

SPIRAL isn’t a commercial film, but it still needed to have that same type of buzz about it, like “Wow, what is this thing? It looks very interesting…” It was devised from a short film that I wrote, I just had this great idea about this guy who did these things and was a painter and became infatuated with his subjects and may or may not kill them and so we wrote the movie around this idea and I think that that’s what draws people into SPIRAL even, that there’s this mystery that’s almost a who-done-it, but it’s not really a who-done-it, it’s more of a “What is he doing?”

Quint: So you’re going off to New Zealand for a couple months and I’m assuming you’re going to be doing some publicity for SPIRAL as well. Do you have anything else lined up?

Joel Moore: Yeah, SPIRAL comes out in theaters in early ‘08 and then after that a crazy little movie that I did, called THE HOTTIE AND THE NOTTIE… Me and Christine Lakin and Paris Hilton plays one of my girlfriends in the movie and she’s actually great in the movie. It really could be something that’s really good for her and that comes out after that and they’re working on the theatrical side of that as we speak and trying to figure out what the release is and how wide of a release and that stuff.

Then a movie I did with Hayden Panettiere from HEROES, called SHANGHAI KISS comes out in February or March-ish and it’s just a great little romantic comedy with Ken Leung playing a guy who is an Asian-American that’s trying to figure out whether he wants to be here in America or whether he wants to be back in his homeland and I play his best friend and Hayden plays his girlfriend or his love interest and yeah it’s really cute. Hayden is a great actress and she’s really funny. She’s a lot different… I knew her before HEROES and in HEROES she’s dramatic and in this she’s comic.

Quint: Busy times and then you have early ‘09 is AVATAR or mid ‘09 or something.

Joel Moore: Yeah and I’ll probably do another film that I’ll shoot after AVATAR that will probably come out before AVATAR just because of that year difference.
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http://www.aintitcool.com/node/33932
 
Poetic Chaos said:
I still don't get what they're going for.
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think of how the white man took over America. the Native Americans were here first and were completely happy and at peace with mother nature and the white man just came and took over.

the same thing is about to happen on planet Pandora and the main character is caught up in the middle of it all.
 
I'm part native American but I'm also white, so go figure. :oldrazz:

All I can say though, is that I'm glad it east Europeans who came here, and not the Huns or the Romans. Conquest and empire building is a universal theme though, because every nation and culture on earth is guilty of it somewhere in their history. Which includes native Americans, who did in fact have wars and kill each other in spite of what Hollywood fluff indicates.
 
Timstuff said:
I'm part native American but I'm also white, so go figure. :oldrazz:
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don't go killing yourself now.

All I can say though, is that I'm glad it east Europeans who came here, and not the Huns or the Romans. Conquest and empire building is a universal theme though, because every nation and culture on earth is guilty of it somewhere in their history. Which includes native Americans, who did in fact have wars and kill each other in spite of what Hollywood fluff indicates.
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i know all cultures, including native americans, fought and warred amongst each other but i think the Europeans gave them the ultimate ass rape though.
 
DorkyFresh said:
don't go killing yourself now.
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I'm not any whiter than the guys running Foxwoods, lol. :D

Like I said, if it had been the Huns or the Romans, it would have also been a face rape, ear rape, navel rape, and just about every other orifice you can think of. You may think it was bad, but it could have been a lot worse, which is why I believe destiny saw it fit for America to be colonized the way it was. Like it or not, there's no way a continent as large as America could have gone on with only a few hundred thousand people living in with stone age technology. Colonization was inevitable, so just be glad that it eventually led to the birth of a democratic government, when there could have been far less scrupulous characters setting up shop here a few hundred years earlier or later.

My attitude is that it could and would have been a lot worse, but this is the world we live in. Human nature is such that various groups will always expand, invade, and misunderstand each other. It's a human thing, and as I pointed out, pretty much every culture does it at one point or another, whether it's on a large scale or a small one.
 
Mr. Socko said:
This movie is basically Planet of the Aliens.
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Part of me wishes it was these Aliens. :(

avpxenomorphxi4.jpg


Darn you Fox and Paul Anderson for killing such a great franchise before Cameron and Scott could make their triumphant return! :cmad:
 
Ribisi Boards Cameron's Avatar
Source: The Hollywood Reporter September 21, 2007


Giovanni Ribisi will star in James Cameron's highly-anticipated 3-D feature Avatar, playing a passive-aggressive character named Selfridge in the Fox film about a band of humans pitted against a distant planet's indigenous inhabitants.

He joins a cast that includes Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Peter Mensah, Laz Alonso, Wes Studi and Stephen Lang.

The $190 million Avatar is set for release May 22, 2009, and features a blend of live-action photography and new virtual photorealistic production techniques invented by Cameron's team. The film features six computer-generated actors known as "synthespians" and is in production in Los Angeles and next month starts production in New Zealand at Weta Digital.

Cameron is writing and directing as well as producing with Jon Landau and Lightstorm Entertainment
 
Galactus said:
Ribisi Boards Cameron's Avatar
Source: The Hollywood Reporter September 21, 2007


Giovanni Ribisi will star in James Cameron's highly-anticipated 3-D feature Avatar, playing a passive-aggressive character named Selfridge in the Fox film about a band of humans pitted against a distant planet's indigenous inhabitants.

He joins a cast that includes Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Peter Mensah, Laz Alonso, Wes Studi and Stephen Lang.

The $190 million Avatar is set for release May 22, 2009, and features a blend of live-action photography and new virtual photorealistic production techniques invented by Cameron's team. The film features six computer-generated actors known as "synthespians" and is in production in Los Angeles and next month starts production in New Zealand at Weta Digital.

Cameron is writing and directing as well as producing with Jon Landau and Lightstorm Entertainment
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:ninja:
 
If they're shooting a trilogy through summer 2008, they're problaby going to keep adding supporting cast members all the way through March or April for Part 3-only characters. Longest casting period evar!

This sounds intriguing... and finally, a movie WORTH going to see, not out of boredom or "fan-obligation" or curiosity, but because the concept, technology are incredible, the actors and director are all proven and solid, in addition to standard reasons.
 
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