Bmore Nerdy

With last December’s release of Avatar, James Cameron did what was considered to be the impossible.

He released a $500 million 3D movie with mostly CG characters, and beat his own record for the highest grossing box office of all time ($2.7 Billion Worldwide).

Well, just announced this morning, he’ll be doing it two more times.

Avatar 2 & 3 will go into immediate production, with Avatar 2 due to hit theaters in December 2014 and Avatar 3 hitting on December 2015.

Details are scarce at this time, aside from continuing the story of the planet Pandora seen in the first film, but with such huge popularity, this announcement must be very well received by both fans and Fox shareholders alike.

The press release follows below:

LOS ANGELES (October 27, 2010) __ Moving forward with the most anticipated films of the next decade, Fox Filmed Entertainment Chairmen Jim Gianopulos and Tom Rothman announced today that Academy Award®-winning filmmaker James Cameron has agreed to make AVATAR 2 and 3 as his next films.

Cameron, who had always viewed AVATAR as the creation of a new world and mythology, will begin work on the scripts early next year with an eye towards commencing production later in 2011. Cameron will decide if he will shoot the films back-to-back after he completes the scripts, but the release of the first, as yet untitled sequel, is targeted for December 2014, with the third film contemplated for a December 2015 release.

AVATAR 2 & 3 will be produced by Cameron and Jon Landau for Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment.

“AVATAR is not only the highest grossing movie of all time, it is a created universe based on the singular imagination and daring of James Cameron, who also raised the consciousness of people worldwide to some of the greatest issues facing our planet,” said Rothman and Gianopulos. “We had no higher priority, and can feel no greater joy, than enabling Jim to continue and expand his vision of the world of AVATAR. This is a great day in the history of our company, and we thank Jim, Jon Landau, Rae Sanchini and all of their team and all of our Fox colleagues throughout the world, who have made this possible.”

Commented Cameron: “It is a rare and remarkable opportunity when a filmmaker gets to build a fantasy world, and watch it grow, with the resources and partnership of a global media company. AVATAR was conceived as an epic work of fantasy – a world that audiences could visit, across all media platforms, and this moment marks the launch of the next phase of that world. With two new films on the drawing boards, my company and I are embarking on an epic journey with our partners at Twentieth Century Fox. Our goal is to meet and exceed the global audience’s expectations for the richness of AVATAR’s visual world and the power of the storytelling. In the second and third films, which will be self contained stories that also fulfill a greater story arc, we will not back off the throttle of AVATAR’s visual and emotional horsepower, and will continue to explore its themes and characters, which touched the hearts of audiences in all cultures around the world. I’m looking forward to returning to Pandora, a world where our imaginations can run wild.”

“It is very exciting to be teaming again with our partners at Fox to give audiences the opportunity to return to Pandora,” said producer Jon Landau. “With the first movie, Jim only scratched the surface of the stories he wants to tell and the creatures and world he wants to create. Now we will continue his vision.”

AVATAR is the highest grossing film of all time, taking in nearly $2.8 billion in worldwide box office. It is also the top-selling Blu-ray disc of all time. AVATAR won Golden Globe® awards for Best Motion Picture and Best Director; and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won Oscars for art direction, visual effects and cinematography.

AVATAR was written by Cameron from an idea he nurtured for over a decade, while working on the technology necessary to realize its wholly imagined world. Working with Joe Letteri and his team at Peter Jackson’s WETA Digital, Cameron created a fully immersive 3D cinematic experience of a new kind, where revolutionary technology that was invented to make the film disappeared into the emotion of the characters and the epic nature of the story.

AVATAR 2 & 3 will mark Cameron’s latest collaborations with Twentieth Century Fox, a relationship that spans 25 years and marks one of the most successful filmmaker-studio alliances in motion picture history. Cameron and Fox first joined forces in 1985 for Aliens, which became a sci-fi classic. Next came The Abyss, which revolutionized visual effects technology; and True Lies, a blockbuster starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 1996, Fox greenlighted Cameron’s Titanic, which became the most successful film in history, and won a record-breaking eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Lightstorm partner Rae Sanchini negotiated the deal on Lightstorm’s behalf.

Source:  Deadline.com.

Never before have I been more excited for a project, then immediately less excited.

Just announced today, Warner Bros has bought a pitch to create a film about the infamous ACME Warehouse, the company who afforded skilled hunter Wile E. Coyote all of his amazing gadgets as he attempted to catch the Road Runner.

Writers Kevin and Dan Hageman put together the pitch, a live-action CG hybrid featuring the devices of the amazing ACME brand, but there’s one key element missing…

There will be no Looney Tunes characters in the film.

What the heck are they thinking?!  I know the idea is to do a Warner Bros based psuedo Night at the Museum, but why even bother to do the project without the characters that defined it?

It’s like doing an entire film about the Batmobile without so much as a reference to the Dark Knight!

I’ve ranted over on my other blog about the terrible decisions WB is making in terms of “revitalizing” the Looney Tunes brand, but this is just terrible.

Either make something new, or deliver a great work with classic characters. Don’t throw out crap just because you can. It just makes my inner child sad.

Source: Heat Vision.

Stop me if you’ve heard a rumor like this before.

Now that George Lucas has [done something], we’ll finally be seeing three more Star Wars films, set after the original trilogy!

The rumors have been around since Return of the Jedi hit theaters back in 1983, with the idea being then that he’d do the Prequels then do Episodes 7-9.

Well, now that all six Star Wars films are set to be re-released in 3D, the rumor is that these re-releases are an attempt by Lucasfilm to raise the necessary capital to produce three new films, a’la the 1997 Special Editions, which paid for the Prequels.

Look, I know we all want to believe that more films could happen (and more desperately, they could be as good as the original three), but I call BS.

The timeline in the rumor puts the first film around 2015 or 2016, which would make George Lucas a ripe 72 years old.

Call me crazy, but I don’t think he’ll be up for three more movies at that point, and on that, I call this a creation of overzealous fans.

Source: IESB.

The name Tom Hardy probably doesn’t ring a bell. But if you’re one of the many people who saw Inception this past summer, you already know who he is, and that subject title just got you excited.

Fresh off of the official agreement for Christopher Nolan to helm the 3rd Batman film, due to hit theaters in Summer 2012, comes the first casting announcement of Tom Hardy. Obviously, Nolan became a fan of Hardy while working with him during the production of Inception, and while his role has yet to be announced, I have little to believe that he won’t add a certain level of class and skill to an already excellent ensemble cast.

It’s certainly reasonable to assume that Hardy will be taking the role of a villain in the cast, given the high profile nature of his casting, but much like Rhys Ifans joining Spider-Man, Warner Bros is keeping the role secret.

I’m sure we’ll find out soon, and once I know – you will too.

Source: Deadline.com.