Getting first-person news about James Cameron’s upcoming film Avatar is like drawing blood from a stone. Every actor and craftsman involved swears that Cameron will teleport into the room and kill them if they speak so much as a word about the film. While blogs like MarketSaw have pushed forward with a handful of spy shots, this is one of the most closed productions by a major genre director in history.
So when Cameron himself speaks about the film, it is news. The director recently appeared on CBC’s program The Hour, and while he didn’t reveal much that is new about the film, a few comments are worth paying attention to. In addition to referring to the post-production process on this movie as ‘trench warfare’ there are a few other tidbits. “We’re trying something with this film,” he says. “We’re working with computer-generated characters that we want to be photo-realistic…We set the bar high. We’re just now getting confidence that it’s going to work.” There’s a bit more about Avatar, but this is a decent little catch-up / retrospective interview, which is worth a look.
And, in a moment that will be dear to millions of geek hearts, Cameron admits that he still hates the people he hated in high school. Nice work, Jim — you’ve just legitimized thousands of willfully infantile jackasses. But he also admits that Pirhana 2 is better most of the way through a six-pack, which is truth.
[via Anne Thompson]