Avatar producer: '3D got a bad name because people didn't do it right'
Jon Landau is adamant public appetite for 3D is still there.
When the first Avatar film was released back in 2009 – and for a number of years afterwards – 3D was the big thing of the moment, mooted by many experts as the long-term future of big-screen entertainment.
Now, 13 years later, Avatar: The Way of Water arrives in a very different cinema landscape – one where the fascination with 3D has more or less completely subsided.
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But producer Jon Landau is adamant that public appetite for 3D is still there, and in an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com, he explained that he thought it had sometimes been unfairly demonised.
“I think there are times when 3D might have gotten a bad name because people didn't do it right," he explained. "But it's like anything – if you shoot a movie and it's out of focus, people will go, 'Wow that cinematography was bad'. So 3D we really believe enhances your experience and the audience's experience."
He added: "I think that when we were making the first Avatar there was zero appetite for 3D. There were next to zero screens that could do 3D. But it didn't stop us because we believed in it – and we still believe in it.
"I’m not saying it should be ubiquitous in the business, but we believe that when you want to transport someone to the world of Pandora it is an essential element of giving them the best possible experience of that story."
Landau went on to discuss some of the major technological advances that had been made in the time between production on the original film and the sequel, particularly highlighting the benefits of high dynamic range.
"That just didn't exist before," he said. "We already had facial performance capture, we're now doing it better, we're now doing it with more nuance.
"But the high dynamic range, it enhances the close-up, it enhances the detail, it enhances the detail you see in the iris, it enhances the tear coming down the cheek.
"I like to say we see our lives in high dynamic range – but projectors, film, cameras couldn't capture all of that before. And now we can!"
Read more:
- Avatar: The Way of Water review – An enchanting but meandering sequel
- Avatar 2 cast tease future sequels: "There’s mysteries there"
Avatar: The Way of Water is showing in UK cinemas from Friday 16th December 2022 and the original Avatar is available to view on Disney Plus – you can sign up to Disney Plus for £7.99 a month or £79.90 for a year now.
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Authors
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
