You Gotta Love That Crazy Cameron

by Chris December 23, 2006

James talks to IGN about Avatar…

“Avatar is a very ambitious sci-fi movie,” said filmmaker James Cameron. “It’s a futuristic tale set on a planet 200 years hence. It’s an old-fashioned jungle adventure with an environmental conscience. It aspires to a mythic level of storytelling.”

The Oscar-winning director spoke about his long-gestating, mysterious pet project in a recent interview with The Independent.

“This has been a dream project of mine for more than a decade, but when I first wrote it, the technology was not advanced enough. So I stuck the script in the drawer until the technology caught up,” Cameron explained.

He added, “The film requires me to create an entirely new alien culture and language, and for that I want ‘photo-real’ CGI characters. Sophisticated enough ‘performance-capture’ animation technology is only coming on stream now. I’ve spent the last 14 months doing performance-capture work – the actor performs the character and then we animate it.”

Now for the bad news, fans. “I’ll spend many months completing the special effects on Avatar, and it will not be released until the summer of 2009. It’s quite a challenge – and for that reason, I embrace it.”