The success of Pixar’s early CGI films inspired every other studio in town to blindly greenlight endless terrible CGI animations, ignoring the fact that those films worked, and connected, because they put time into the story and characters, whereas the likes of say, “Open Season,” um, didn’t. Similarly, the two billion dollar success of “Avatar” has already accelerated the desire to put every tentpole in three dimensions, ignoring the fact that it proved so successful because 1) it found a genuine sense of awe and wonder missing in most big movies of the last few years and because 2) people, for whatever reason, connected with the story.
Nevertheless, the me-toos keep coming – yesterday saw the announcement that “Green Lantern” and “Sucker Punch” will both get 3D releases, and today brings a report that the “Alien” prequel that Ridley Scott is currently prepping will be shot in 3D. Site Shadowlocked (via Slashfilm) spoke to Roger Christian, the art director of the original film in the series, who said that he’s spoken to the director, and that “Ridley’s doing the next “Alien” in 3D.”
Christian’s hoping to be hired for the project, and said that “Ridley told me some of his ideas when we were here in Toronto. He has a very clear understanding of where this should go. They kind of stopped dead one of the greatest horror franchises there’s ever been, and it had legs to go on. So I’m hoping he’ll revive another three. The world certainly wants it, and the fans want it – everybody.”
To repeat what we’ve said before, we’re not sure we want this one, really. We’re pleased Scott is directing, but H.R. Giger’s creatures are terrifying in the first film, because you know nothing about them, and a prequel, as the film’s rumored to be, risks over-explaining the beast. The 3D element, if true, doesn’t exactly convince us that it’s anything except a cash grab. We’ll see in a month or so how keen the studio bean-counters continue to be on the 3D revolution when “How To Train Your Dragon” and “Clash of the Titans” cannibalize each other’s screens, but we imagine there’s enough people out there that want to see facehuggers literally in their faces.