FIVE QUESTIONS: PAUL W.S. ANDERSON

Director Paul W.S. Anderson is entering the 3-D fray in theaters when his next film, "Resident Evil: Afterlife," hits screens September 10. He's a champion of the technology, and many of his movies, including the "Resident Evil" films, "Event Horizon," and "Mortal Kombat" are the kinds of that draw viewers into a immersive world -- which seems to be the ultimate goal of 3-D. The tech-savvy director is one of the featured keynote speakers at the 3D Gaming Summit, to be held in Los Angeles on Wednesday and Thursday, and allowed Hero Complex contributor Jevon Phillips a few minutes to chat.

JP: Is 3-D TV the next phase or the next plateau for entertainment?

PA: Absolutely. I'm cutting a movie in 3-D at the moment -- we shot the new "Resident Evil: Afterlife" in 3-D -- so I'm in my cutting room every day and I'm watching 3-D televisions and I'm watching the movie in 3-D ... and then I go home in the evening and in my home theater and I watch regular movies. I've got to say, I'm really disappointed. My TV at home is not a 3-D TV and I've really gotten used to having the depth of 3-D images. So, without a doubt, I think it's definitely the future and I think you have a whole generation of kids who are growing up now who are watching 3-D movies and are being immersed in 3-D and they're going to want that. Not only are they going to expect their movies in 3-D, but if TV and the gaming experience can be in 3-D, then so much the better. That just makes the whole movie experience that much better.

JP: So you don't think it's a phase or a cyclical technological movement?

PA: Oh no, it's completely not. I think it's like the introduction of color photography. When Technicolor came in, everyone said, "Oh, it's just a fad" or "It's just for big movies -- you won't be making every single movie in color." Cut to 10 years later and you were now making an artistic decision to make a movie in black-and-white at that point because color became the standard. I think 3-D will become the standard for filmmaking and for television and whatever you watch your gaming platforms on. Just because it's so good.  It's great and it's immersive and then I go home and I watch flat-screen TV and I go, "Ugh! Why is there no depth here? Why is it all flat?" I went home and watched my favorite movie, "Heat," and I just went "Ugh, Why is it so flat?"

JP: The differences between 3-D techniques and technologies is a hot topic among filmmakers and moviegoers. Where do you weigh in on this in terms of things that you've had to research -- you ultimately went with James Cameron's camera and ...

PA: Well, it's not really James Cameron's camera. We shot the movie with a Sony F35 camera, which in my opinion is the best digital camera in the world with the best image quality. But Cameron and Vincent Pace had built that camera into a 3-D rig, and that was the rig that we used: the Fusion Camera system, which is the same system that Cameron had used on "Avatar." Cameron very generously allowed us to see a chunk of "Avatar" last year when it was still in production. Two things became very clear: One was he's making an amazing movie, and the other was the 3-D imagery that he was capturing with this camera system that he'd built out of the Sony cameras was raising 3-D to a completely different level. I had always been unsure about 3-D because I'd felt that it was a difficult experience in the cinema. It had given me a headache or it hadn't worked very well, or if you didn't sit in the right part of the cinema it wasn't very good. Cameron was raising 3-D to a completely different level where it was an experience that you'd never had before. And that's why I decided to use that camera system. For me, originating images in the 3-D system is completely different than doing a dimensionalization process in post-production, which is, for example, what "Clash of the Titans" did.  The images that you get are nowhere near as good because you're shooting a 2-D movie. It's like shooting a black-and-white movie and then colorizing it afterward, or shooting a silent movie and then dubbing all of the dialogue afterward. It's not the same thing. It's like drinking a fine bottle of Champagne or cheap Thunderbird. Both of them will get you drunk, but I can tell you which is the better experience.

JP: Nice, I get it. So, how much influence does the game have on you when you're making the movies?

PA: I played the first three games and was immersed in the world, and that's what sucked me into the idea of making the movie. I've approached each of the films almost as if they were another installment of the video game. The Resident Evil video game franchise is very long-lasting and it's been very successful over a long period of time, whereas a lot of other franchises have kind of floundered -- for example, the Tomb Raider video game franchise. And one of the things that I think Resident Evil does well as a video game franchise is that they're constantly reinventing themselves. They're introducing new stories, new characters and new locations. They're not stuck doing the same thing over and over again, which I thought was one of the weaknesses of Tomb Raider.

JP: Sticking to the video game fan base. And speaking of your fan base, are you planning a Comic-Con trip at all?

PA: Yeah. Well, we just did WonderCon and that went very well. We showed the teaser trailer for "Resident Evil" and got an excellent response to it. We launched our teaser at the same time that "Clash of the Titans" came out, and at pretty much the same time that "Clash" was getting criticism about how weak the 3-D was, we were getting a lot of positive comments about how strong the 3-D was in our movie. That eventually leads to the difference between something where you go to great lengths and expense to originate 3-D images or you jump on a bandwagon and do it cheap in post-production. And that's a message that we're going to continue to get out there -- and a trip to Comic Con will be a part of that.

-- Jevon Phillips

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Photos: Director Paul W.S. Anderson. Credit: Courtesy of Paul W.S. Anderson. His technological inspiration, James Cameron, at the Hollywood premiere of "Avatar." Credit: Getty images. Tomb Raider heroine Lara Croft was a hot commodity, but cooled quickly. Credit : Eidos.

"IRON MAN 2" COUNTDOWN: 25 DAYS

Tony Stark breaks all the rules (even the one that says superheroes must keep a secret identity) and he always seems to comes out on top -- that's why we love him. But now comes "Iron Man 2," a film about secret dangers, the sins of the father and the nasty price of modern celebrity. The movie lands May 7 in the U.S., and every day until then, we'll have behind-the-scenes scoops on the summer's most anticipated film.

Here's a new interactive trailer for "Iron Man 2." Hot spots within the video access deeper content on  characters, the always-evolving armor suit and two key set-pieces in the film: the Race of Champions and Stark Expo 2010.

-- Geoff Boucher

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Michael Cera gets in on the superheroics this summer with "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," about a bass player who must defeat seven evil ex-boyfriends in order to win the hand of the girl of his dreams. Universal Studios just released the first trailer for the Aug. 13 release.

"Shaun of the Dead" director Edgar Wright adapted this film from Bryan Lee O'Malley's popular comics. Expect lots of music, action and -- check it out! -- flaming swords.

-- Patrick Kevin Day

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Photo: Universal Pictures

The fugitives who always have a plan and drive a cool, souped-up black van are back, and we pity the fool who hasn't seen the trailer for the 2010 big-screen remake of Stephen J. Cannell's and Frank Lupo's action-packed seminal '80s TV show "The A-Team."

Not much reinvention here as the actors -- Bradley Cooper as Lt. Templeton "Faceman" Peck, Liam Neeson as Col. John "Hannibal" Smith, Sharlto Copley as Capt. "Howling Mad" Murdock, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson as Sgt. Bosco "B.A." Baracus and new addition Jessica Biel as Lt. Sosa -- don't seem to stray too far from the core concept of the characters. Smart for director Joe Carnahan. The original Murdock (Dwight Schultz) and Faceman (Dirk Benedict) will apparently make appearances as well. Subtle, or not so subtle, links to the past are usually cool. Over-the-top, a bit snarky, explosions galore ... just like old times. But what do you think of the trailer?

-- Jevon Phillips

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-- Geoff Boucher

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Early images from one highly anticipated film ("Tron Legacy"), and one somewhat anticipated film ("The Sorcerer's Apprentice") were introduced today, and both look eye-poppingly interesting.

 
Light cycles!  Nice.  There are more images from "Tron" and "Sorcerer's" after the jump.

"AVATAR" COUNTDOWN: 25 DAYS

James Cameron's decade-long quest to deliver his sci-fi epic "Avatar" to moviegoers is nearing its climax. We're counting down the days to the Dec. 18 release with daily coverage here at the mighty Hero Complex. Today, an interactive trailer is introduced, allowing more access to behind-the-scenes work and character development.

The technology of James Cameron's "Avatar" is being called groundbreaking before it has even launched -- and now that tag can extend even to the trailer.

No, not that trailer -- the one where everyone seemed to form full and complicated opinions after viewing only minutes of the epic -- but a new one that just launched this morning. The "Avatar" Interactive trailer is actually more of a program or application than your usual run-of-the-mill teaser.  With Cameron's film taking years to complete, the trailer even took a while to develop, too, with a four-month creation time.

"We kind of look at it as the next generation of movie trailers because it allows users to interact and delve deeper into the content of the movie," says Fox's Jeffrey Godsick, executive vice president of marketing and digital content.

Built on Adobe AIR software, the application not only plays trailers, but also helps you keep track of news about "Avatar" through all kinds of social media. Like the Virtual Echo desktop for "Dollhouse" (RIP), AIR also can be made portable and not browser-based. Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube all contribute to the feed that will fill up your entire screen if you choose.

With all of that, the trailer is the centerpiece, and with it are other video pieces that give the user more insight into the creation of the movie. "Hots pots" during the trailer allow users to see vignettes about creature and technological designs and hear character profiles from many of the film's stars.

It can be a bit overwhelming when you first see it cover your whole screen, and for fans who are really anticipating the movie, the officialavatar tweeter pops up with updates even when the program is minimized. It's all a cool interaction, but I wondered how much input Cameron, the tech godling, had in the program's development.

"The incorporation of technology has always been really important to [Cameron]. He's really been supportive of the idea because it's cool, but also because it really does allow people to get involved in this world.  He and Lightstorm have actually been involved in the creation of some of the content pieces," says Godsick.

The program will continue to be updated as the movie nears. It was also mentioned that Cameron's Lightstorm is developing a Pandorapedia to launch in December that will give an even more in-depth look at the world "Avatar" has created.

To download the interactive trailer, you can do it via the film's official movie site (www.avatarmovie.com) and social network profiles on Facebook (www.facebook.com/officialavatar), YouTube (www.youtube.com/officialavatar) and Twitter (twitter.com/officialavatar), as well as through the Adobe.com website.

-- Jevon Phillips

Photos: Screenshots from the application.

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Buried underneath Kanye West's dastardly spotlight-hogging stunt with poor Taylor Swift during last night's MTV Video Music Awards was Taylor Lautner, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson taking to the stage at Radio City Music Hall to give the audience a sneak peek of the newest "New Moon" movie trailer.  Here it is:

Looks action-packed, but don't most trailers?  It got a sizable helping of hype, but fared better than the "Avatar" release.  They are, of course, decidely different audiences, but the fervor surrounding them was similar.  We got a few glimpses of Dakota Fanning and the Volturi along with the shirtless ones (Taylor, RPatz), enough to appease the squeal squads. Sites like Twilightsource.com got early looks, but even for the fans of the movie that may not be as hard-core with the books or the fandom surrounding "The Twilight Saga," it looked enticing.

Just giving Hero Complexers a look.  What do you think of the trailer, and can Chris Weitz's rendition draw you if you weren't already a fan?

-- Jevon Phillips

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Everyone is talking about it, but only a few sites have waded into the reviewing waters following the release this morning of James Cameron's "Avatar" trailer on Apple.com, and subsequently, a weird release by the French MSN site. The photo here will take you to Apple's site, and there are a few opinions afterwards.

RantRave
http://www.rantrave.com/Rave/James-Camerons-Avatar-Trailer-Review.aspx

Pros: Aliens, compelling CGI. It's a freakin’ space epic!
Cons: Probably will be "family-friendly." Boo.
"I’m excited for this movie, and I can’t wait to see another trailer. Avatar may have a fairly unoriginal plot, but I think it shows promise. Thanks, James Cameron!"

Tim Robey - Telegraph.co.uk
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/6062230/Avatar-trailer-review.html

Brisk and a little perfunctory, the trailer itself is not a huge wow, but there’s plenty in it to tantalise.

FilmJunk
http://www.filmjunk.com/2009/08/20/james-camerons-avatar-trailer-the-real-thing/

The environments do look quite beautiful and I have to say, I’m intrigued by the idea of people stepping into these mind-controlled versions of themselves. That said, the CG does look like CG, and I think it’s going to be hard for a lot of people to accept that most of the action is essentially fully animated.

Marc Bernardin, Entertainment Weekly
http://popwatch.ew.com/2009/08/20/avatar-teaser-i-mean-i-guess-its-cool-right/

I’m kind of underwhelmed. There’s a definite Attack of the Clones vibe to the creatures — which feel like beasts from the sketchbook of an insanely talented 12-year-old — and the world, while expertly realized, just doesn’t carry the charge of the New.

Drew McWeeny, HitFix
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/2008-12-6-motion-captured/posts/avatar-trailer-premieres-online

You know what's not cool?  The way fandom seems to have decided that, no matter what, they're going to sit cross-armed and irritated over the entire idea of the film ... I guess you can color me profoundly out-of-step with what looks to me to be the general response to the trailer, because I thought it was a simple, elegant introduction both to the world of Pandora and the general idea of the film.

You've heard their opinions, now tell us yours.

-- Jevon Phillips

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When Paul Bettany said (at Comic-Con) that his upcoming film "Legion" would feature a lot of heavenly gunfire in the battle between his character, the angel Michael, and rival Gabriel, we couldn't be sure exactly what he meant.  The trailer definitely explains it.

There's a red band trailer out as well that's even more shocking.  It's "Angels & Demons" (religious angle) meets "Crank High Voltage" (crazy action) with a little bit of John Woo's "The Killer" (operatic violence) thrown in. But will it be any good? Let us know what you think.

-- Jevon Phillips

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