Why IMAX and 3D movies are the future of cinema
Cinema’s 21st century revolution was already well under way this time last year, but the success of James Cameron’s Avatar has almost certainly created an unstoppable avalanche.
Where 3D was once a fad which came and went with films like Jaws 3D, this time it looks here to stay.
Avatar has been breaking records worldwide since it opened on December 16.
It has toppled Cameron’s own Titanic to become the highest grossing movie in history – after 12 years in which no other movie came close.
In January of this year, at Birmingham, Avatar broke The Dark Knight’s 37,000 seat record at the giant, 385-seater IMAX screen at Millennium Point.
A pioneering blend of live action, motion capture and animation, Avatar has now had more than 40,000 ticket sales on this one screen alone, taking the gross there beyond £350,000.
More than 100 performances – that’s virtually every peak-time show – have sold out since it opened. The mid-afternoon screening on January 31, had already sold out by January 18.
Back in December, when I met up with Cameron in London, even the ‘King of the World’ – as he had proclaimed himself on his big Oscar night – could not have dared to dream that Avatar would become quite so successful.
As with Titanic, national newspapers like The Guardian and Daily Mail were again predictably running spoiler headlines predicting ‘the most expensive flop of all time’.
But Iron Jim, as he’s known in the trade, is a brave pioneer like Apple’s Steve Jobs.
Both men have a vision about trying to change the way things are done for the better – and then they let the market decide that they were right!
Cameron’s returning Aliens star, Sigourney Weaver, said as much in the week of release.
“Cinema has had several revolutions,” she told me in London. “But this is by far the biggest.”
I first met Cameron at London’s Science Museum in 2003 when he was launching his Titanic wreckage film, Ghosts of the Abyss.
It was already 12 long years since Terminator 2 had become what remains cinema’s most successful sequel and you wondered why he’d seemingly given up on his gift to entertain, and enthrall, the masses.
Avatar then was still just an eight-year-old dream in progress, so it’s fascinating to see how he was prepared to take such a long break as a feature film director while digital technology caught up with his ambition.
Now 55, James says: “Films like Polar Express and Chicken Little proved that 3D could be very profitable and give studios additional revenue.
