Despite some bad reviews (30% over at Rotten Tomatoes), director Louis Leterrier’s remake of Clash Of The Titans has pulled in over $61 million at the box office. (Of course,the recently jacked up prices for 3D showings had a hand in that total.) In addition to the bad script and flat acting, some of the criticism leveled at the film targeted its bad, unconvincing 3D.
But don’t blame Leterrier for that. It wasn’t his decision to release the film in 3D. He didn’t even shoot the film in the format. But once studio Warner Brothers saw the grosses that James Cameron’s Avatar was pulling late last year, they ordered Clash to be quickly converted into 3D in order to cash in on the public’s apparent hunger for 3D movies.
It was a move that Leterrier was not enthusiastic about-
Listen, it was not my intention to do it in 3D; it was not my decision to convert it in 3D.
The process used to convert a film from 2D to 3D involves using computers to take certain elements of a frame of film and pop them forward into a separate plane from the background. Unfortunately, this process doesn’t approach the realism of films that are shot specifically for 3D.
That is one of the things I was saying to them. Don’t make it so much like a ViewMaster — so … so puffied up. . . Conversions, they all look like this. “Alice in Wonderland” looks like this. Remember the technology was not ready, so it’s Warner Bros saying we are giving you the best of what we can do.
Unfortunately, I see more studios ordering films into post-production 3D conversation with the eye towards making a quick buck at the box office over the objections of their directors. And in their drive for a quick short-term buck, they are probably damaging the long-term prospects of 3D as a viable form of film presentation that the public will want to spend their money on.
Via Hollywood Reporter.
