Unsinkable James Cameron refloats 'Titanic' in 3-D
By David Germain
AP Movie Writer / March 29, 2012
"Yes, it was hard, but no one ever said it was going to be easy," Winslet said. "When all the stories started emerging about how tough it had been and Jim Cameron being mean to everybody and costs over-running, I went, wait a minute, what makes these people think they can speculate about all of this? They weren't there.
"Yes, he lost his temper, but he only ever lost his temper for really, really good reasons. Like we would spend days literally setting up a shot, and if someone isn't doing his job and dumps water ten seconds too late, then we've got to start over. ... Yeah, I could understand that man getting a little (ticked) off."
Cameron's photo-realistic computer effects on "Titanic" helped propel Hollywood into the digital age, and he continued his innovations with the underwater 3-D documentaries "Ghosts of the Abyss" and "Aliens of the Deep."
It took 12 years for his next dramatic feature to hit theaters, the sci-fi sensation "Avatar," whose success turned the new novelty of digital 3-D into a frenzy for Hollywood. Studios hurtled into 3-D action shoots or, to the dismay of fans and critics, did hasty, ugly 3-D conversions of 2-D movies that gave the format a bad rap.
As "Avatar" set the standard for movies shot in 3-D, "Titanic" may raise the bar for movies converted from 2-D. Distributors 20th Century Fox and Paramount spent $18 million on the conversion and digital remastering, with Cameron overseeing a team of 300 people who spent 60 weeks on a frame-by-frame reconstruction to add the illusion of depth.
The results are dazzling, the images of the shipwreck now presented as though the audience is right there watching alongside.
Cameron had thought about a 3-D "Titanic" for the past decade and eventually settled on April's centennial of the 1912 shipwreck as the ideal time to re-release the film. It opens April 4, in advance of the April 14 anniversary.
In 2005, Cameron already was showing 3-D footage of the film to theater owners at a convention, where he and "Star Wars" creator George Lucas were among filmmakers pitching the notion of converting older movies.
"'Titanic's' a no-brainer," Cameron said. "It's a timeless film, it's visually sumptuous, it was shot in a way that's very conducive to 3-D. I've always been trying to do 3-D in a way, by moving the camera, by shooting with shorter lenses so you get deeper focus and you're more aware of the background. All these ways that you enhance it, even when you're shooting in 2-D. So the 3-D conversion actually brought all that out."
Hollywood became sold on the idea once millions of fans started shelling out a few extra dollars to see new blockbusters in 3-D. So far, a handful of older films have come out in digital 3-D versions, among them "The Lion King," which pulled in $94.2 million to raise its lifetime domestic haul to $423.2 million and Lucas' "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace," which added $43.1 million to lift its total to $474.2 million.
"Titanic" never played or barely showed in some big markets such as Russia and China, and fans now in their teens have only had a chance to see it on small screens, Cameron said. That gives it a good prospect to narrow some of the billion-dollar gap between its worldwide gross and that of "Avatar."
"It only needs to make, worldwide, $160 million to break the $2 billion mark, of which there would only be two films in that club at that point. Mine and mine," Cameron said, laughing. (In fairness to older flicks, such hits as "Gone with the Wind," "The Sound of Music" and "Star Wars" would have made more money than "Avatar" or "Titanic," adjusted for inflation.)
"The goal here is not about making money with `Titanic.' The goal is to put the film back into cinemas so that people that either loved it back then and haven't had a chance to see it in a movie theater since can go see it. Or people who only know it from video can see it for the first time on a theater screen. I don't make movies for iPhones or tablets. I like to think that there's still a sanctity in the cinema experience."
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“Titanic” is steaming back into theaters in April (this time in 3-D) to celebrate the blockbuster’s 15th anniversary, and Kate Winslet says having a new crop of audiences watch her work from 1997 is slightly embarrassing.
“It is like somebody saying, ‘You know that home video we made of you 16 years ago that took seven-and-a-half months to make? Well, we’re going to bring it out again and we’re going to ask everybody to watch it,’” the Oscar-winning star told Access Hollywood correspondent Tim Vincent at a junket for “Titanic 3D” in London on Monday.
“And the biggest grossing home video,” Tim added.
“The biggest grossing home video and they’re going to premiere it at the Royal Albert Hall,” Kate continued. “It’s like, my God!”
While the epic film’s re-release is nerve-wracking, the 36-year-old star admits James Cameron’s filmmaking talents are highlighted by the addition of 3-D technology.
“I will say this: it does look incredible on the piece that I’ve seen — it looks amazing,” Kate told Tim. “There’s a sequence in the engine room after the ship has hit the iceberg which is so, so amazing and it really does bring it to life even more than it does in the original.
“So, I will say that much for it,” she added. “It’s spectacular and overwhelming in all the right ways.”
In addition to changes to Kate’s acting over the years, the actress says she’s surprised by how her facial features have matured since filming “Titanic” with Leonardo DiCaprio over a decade ago.
“My face shape is completely different, my features seem older,” she told Tim. “I didn’t think that when I imagined myself in my kind of later 30s when I was 20, 21 years old, you know — I think when you’re younger you imagine yourself kind of really looking old and wrinkly and kind of passed it. [But] now, you know, I can sort of look in the mirror and go, ‘Two kids, not bloody bad!’”
“Titanic 3D” hits theaters on April 4.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wqhhuHHPb8&feature=related"]Titanic 3D: Relive The Emotion - YouTube[/ame]
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[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsyMoy04Rvw[/media]