Here’s a rumour that gets me excited: according to Christopher Nolan’s long-time cinematographer Wally Pfister, he really wants to shoot the entirety of the next Batman movie in IMAX. And he hates 3D.
Really, this is great news. 3D, in my opinion, is an annoying fad. But those scenes in The Dark Knight that were shot in IMAX, when seen on a real-deal IMAX screen, were absolutely stunning. An entire film shot that way, by Christopher Nolan? Yes please.
Here’s the entire quote by Pfister:
“I can’t say until I read the script, but it would certainly be my preferred, amazing goal to shoot the whole movie in IMAX. I must say I’m a huge IMAX fan. I like IMAX more than I like 3-D. Chris’ films are so densely layered and have so much going on visually in every way that IMAX helps enhance that because of the scope and the scale of it – it becomes a much larger canvas to paint on. That’s what we found on ‘Dark Knight.’ I’m not a big fan of 3-D. I liken it to my View-Master I had 40 years ago. Are you really getting more out of the story with 3-D? When you separate those different planes and you’re creating artificial depth, it looks phony to me.”
Add to that the fact that Nolan himself has gone on record about his distaste for what 3D does to movies, and it’s looking pretty clear that the next Batman won’t be 3D:
“On a technical level, it’s fascinating. But on an experiential level, I find the dimness of the image extremely alienating.”
Thank goodness at least one Hollywood hitmaker isn’t succumbing to the studio’s love of $30 movie tickets. [MTV via io9]
matt
Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 9:41 AMremind me again: why do we all hate 3D?
Normandy
Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 10:50 AM1. tickets are a rip off
2. it gives many people a headache
3. many others cant see it properly
4. it is distracting
Dominic Trinajstic
Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 9:37 PMIt’s redundant if you only have one working eye.
But 3D died in the cinemas a long time ago for many a good reason, and aside from the headache inducement (used to be colour-based, now it is flicker/polarisation-based), I am yet to see how 3D enhances a story. It’s all jokes and gags and tacky-pop-up/pop-outs in children’s films and horror movies.
The closest thing was Avatar; a technical marvel, no doubt. But without 3D, that movie was bland. The 3D technology use was so wondrous in that film, it sufficiently distracted the viewer from the story and acting.
Bobbobboy
Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 1:46 PM“Thank goodness at least one Hollywood hitmaker isn’t succumbing to the studio’s love of $30 movie tickets”
uh clearly you haven’t been to a real imax cinema recently.
Daftgown
Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 8:58 PMI can’t begin to tell you what a relief this is. Couldn’t we all just smell the gel starting to smolder atop a marketing executive’s head! “Batman number 3…in….wait for it….3D! (see what he did there) The promo’s write themselves!” Large format cinematography in a drama is something mostly lost (for legitimate and illegitimate reasons). I can only hope Nolan and Wally Pfister have enough clout to convince Warner Brother’s to fork over the dough for a 65mm production. If anyone is interested in the use of IMAX in Inception: http://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/July2010/Inception/page1.php