While the current cattle run of the industry is in the direction of making everyfuckingthing in 3D as quickly as possible, it’s interesting to see the TRON team investing in something as 5 minutes ago as full IMAX aspect ratio.
Before the 3D wave began to roll with Avatar, you may remember a brief fascination with legitimate IMAX presentation after a little 2008 flick called The Dark Knight met some success. In its IMAX presentation, The Dark Knight switched between traditional 35mm blow-up, and legitimate 70mm footage that Nolan famously shot with IMAX’s monstrous cameras. TRON: Legacy will not replicate that same feat, but the team will be rendering five scenes of the digitally shot film in 1.7:1 (which is not full IMAX res, but approaches it) rather than the narrower (thinner? I don’t know. Fucking less tall) 2:35:1. This comes from /Film and First Showing, who managed a few minutes with director Joseph Kosinski at TRON Day.
This will be an IMAX exclusive presentation and will serve to fill your field of vision more completely (assuming you’re not in a bullshit IMAX theater) for those scenes. This seems to be taking the same approach Warner Brothers has used when adding 3D sequences to Harry Potter films (as well as Superman Returns) and simply picking out the 5 most action-packed or visually intense scenes and spot-enhancing them- compared again to the The Dark Knight which had 20 minutes of IMAX peppered throughout in long and short stretches.
There is a special online trailer expected that would demonstrate the approach being taken.
Speaking of trailers, it’s expected that Alice In Wonderland (which is accumulating an increasingly grim buzz) will feature a TRON trailer. Total Film, which debuted the nasty real world image of Flynn’s Arcade seen below, has it “on good authority” that any such trailer would debut online next week.
We’re still a ways out from the December 17th release of TRON: Legacy, but expect the marketing train to keep the film in front of our faces through 2010.