James Cameron sat down with George Stroumboulopoulos (lol?) for CBC’s The Hour. During the 14 minute interview he spoke about his upcoming sci-fi epic Avatar. I don’t recall watching him speak about it before (although he probably has done), we usually just get quotes from websites, so to actually see him talking about it is quite cool. Other movies that pop up during the interview are Aliens, Titanic and Terminator. If you are a fan of Cameron then you’ll enjoy this interview.

(The Avatar stuff starts around the 4 minute 30 seconds mark)

A few weeks ago we got word that James Cameron’s Avatar would cost between $250 - 300 million, which is not the cheapest of movies by any means. However, IESB recently spoke to Fox co-chairman Tom Rothman and he revealed that despite the budget talk, it is not the most expensive movie Fox has made.

I won’t comment on the exact budget except to say that as always with Jim [Cameron] everything is misreported, everything is exaggerated, because he is larger than life and so everything surrounding him tends to be larger than life. While it’s obviously an expensive movie, it’s not an unprecedented expensive movie and it’s not even the most expensive movie we’ve made at the company and certainly not close to the most expensive movie that’s been made in the business recently.

He then went on to say that if Avatar makes huge numbers next December, we could be getting a sequel.

Jim Cameron tends to make hits and if the movie is a hit then this is the beginning, certainly for both the use of the technology and the work, it’s not going to stop here. So, there’s long term value to it as well.

IESB: So, potentially, this is a franchise?

TR: If it does well, yes, absolutely, in terms of an arena a whole new world. But for us, it isn’t any of that, it isn’t even the technology, it isn’t even the look and the world all of which is the coolest shit I’ve ever seen, it isn’t even any of that, it’s that it’s a great story. It’s just a great story. You read the story and you are gripped by every page, it’s just a great, original story with tremendously, classic emotional value. So, at the end of the day, that’s really what we’re here for, to try and make great stories when you can find them.

Avatar actress Zoe Saldana told fashion site Glam.com that she is scheduled to resume work on Avatar some time after shooting crime thriller Bone Deep with Paul Walker and Hayden Christensen.

GlamBlush: What’s next for you after Fashion Week?

Zoe Saldana: Work. I have to go back and do a film called Bone Deep. Then I have to go back to Mr. James Cameron and finish Avatar, so I’m back to work. This was actually my work/vacation, and I’ve had a blast!

Saldana plays Neytiri, the alien love interest to Sam Worthington’s character Jake Sully. We probably won’t be seeing her on screen, although we will see her movements and speech as James Cameron will be working his magic and will turn her into a member of the Na’vi alien race.

Zoe Saldana will also be seen in the upcoming Star Trek movie next May.

MarketSaw got their hands on a new image from the set of James Cameron’s Avatar, although this is no ordinary image…it’s a HD image! The image gives us a good look at what all of this revolutionary 3D motion capture stuff looks like during filming. We see an actor in a motion capture suit, and we also see horses with dots all over them. (They are probably there so that Cameron can turn them into alien beasts in post-production)

Click the image below to get a closer look!

An article over at Variety looks at the budget for James Cameron’s upcoming sci-fi epic Avatar. The movie started filming last April and won’t be released until December 2009, but it was originally set to be released next summer.

Variety say that the budget is between $250-$300 million, which is more then what Sony plunged into Spider-Man 3. However, Sony knew Spidey would make that money back, where as Fox are not guaranteed that profit.

Sources close to the studio admit there was a time when it was terrified that Cameron’s process wouldn’t work. Execs relaxed a tad when they got to see finished footage. Giving Cameron and Weta Digital in New Zealand (where substantial rebates make everything cheaper) extra post-production time made sense.

The later release date leaves exhibitors time to add more 3-D screens. The movie could go out on a three-tiered basis: high-ticket super-charged Imax 3-D, regular 3-D and old-fashioned 2-D — unless Cameron gets his way and refuses to show the movie on 2-D. That’s a tough one, as there are about 1,000 North American screens and only a few hundred 3-D screens overseas.

More are scheduled to be built in the next year, but several senior execs at rival studios predict that Cameron will persuade Fox to push the movie back, because the prospect of releasing a $300 million movie on 1,500 screens worldwide is too nerve-wracking.

Despite all the money being put behind this thing there is hardly any proof of it’s existence (none for us us normal people anyway)

James Cameron is set to be inducted this Saturday into the Toronto-based Walk of Fame by Avatar star Sigourney Weaver, and he spoke to The Canadian Press about upcoming film.

“It makes ‘Titanic’ look like a picnic,” Cameron said recently during an interview from Los Angeles, where he is working furiously on the new film.

“It’s this form of pure creation where … if you want to move a tree or a mountain or the sky or change the time of day, you have complete control over the elements and the production design,” Cameron said.

“It’s simultaneously the most vexing and the most rewarding type of production that I’ve done yet,” Cameron says of the project, due in theatres Dec. 18, 2009.

Sounds good….

RELEASE AN IMAGE!!!

My most anticipated movie at this point in time is James Cameron’s Avatar. Cameron is known for his groundbreaking technology and when the Avatar actors describe the CG technology as ‘20x more advanced than Beowulf‘ you know we have something to look forward to.

Here’s Emily:

She isn’t real.

Avatar producer Jon Landau spoke about this technology that will be used in the film:

“Image Metrics’ revolutionary technologies for performance-driven character animation require neither complex motion-capture hardware, nor specialist technical knowledge. Their animation solutions put the performer at the heart of the process, dramatically enhancing the creativity and reducing post-production time. It is this type of innovation that will again allow us to present to the consumer, stories that could not otherwise be told.”

This technology will mainly be used on Zoe Saldana, Laz Alonso, CCH Pounder and the rest of the actors playing the Na’vi alien race.

The Times Online also has a cool article on “Emily” and the technology behind her.

James Cameron’s Avatar is still 17 months away, yet with every small bit of news my anticipation rises. Cameron spoke to THR about the filming process, and said it was the most challenging film he has ever made.

When completed, Cameron expects “Avatar” to be about 60% CG animation, based on characters created using a newly developed performance capture-based process, and 40% live action, with a lot of VFX in the imagery.

“It is the most challenging film I’ve ever made,” Cameron said.

Still, the innovative filmmaker and digital 3-D pioneer and champion has never shifted his emphasis from storytelling.

“You have to make a good film that would be a good film under any circumstances,” he said. “You have to put the narrative first. The reality is no matter how many (3-D) screens we get, you are still going to have a large number of people — possibly the majority of people — who see the film in a 2-D environment.”

To read the rest of the article click here!

We haven’t had anything officially released yet. No footage, no images, nothing. I don’t expect we will get a teaser trailer until at least 90% of the footage is complete. Cameron wouldn’t put out anything that is half finished.

James Cameron talked today at Microsoft Advance ‘08 about Avatar, and Search Engine Watch have a rundown of what he had to say:

“‘Avatar’ will make people truly experience something,” said Cameron. “One more layer of the suspension of disbelief will be removed. All the syn-thespians are photo-realistic. Now that we’ve achieved it, we discovered CG characters in 3D look more real than in 2D. Your brain is cued it’s a real thing not a picture and discounting part of [the] image that makes it look fake.”

“‘Avatar’ is the single most complex piece of filmmaking ever made,” said Cameron. “We have 1,600 shots for a 2.5 hour movie. It’s not with a single CGI character, like King Kong or Gollum. We have hundreds of photo-realistic CG characters. We were Microsoft’s sandbox for filmmaking beyond the cutting edge.”

I am pleased he is making Avatar seem like it is going to be the best movie ever made, because I want it to be. The problem is we have a year and a half to wait until we see it for ourselves, so until then we’re just gonna have to go with what he says. Hopefully we will get a trailer or first image sometime soon. If Star Trek can get a teaser trailer a year before it is released then so can Avatar!

Sigourney Weaver recently talked to the United Press about her role in the ‘not soon to be released’, Avatar. Working on the sci-fi epic meant that she would be reunited with director James Cameron, who made Weaver a household name after they worked together on Aliens back in 1986.

“It was great,” Weaver told reporters in New York Monday. “I’m so fond of him personally. He loves actors; he’s such a good director. … I can’t believe it’s been 20 years. We picked up like we’d never been apart, like an old married couple.”

“We had a long talk about what he had not been doing and what he had been doing and how he really wanted me to do this character,” Weaver recalled. “He had thought about making it a man, as well, but had decided, in the end, that he wanted it to be a woman and he wanted it to be me.

“And it’s such a great — like all of his women characters — it was a great woman character and I teased him because, to me, I’m playing James Cameron in the movie … with his kind of brilliant, scientific approach, driven, idealistic, perfectionistic, but with great heart underneath.”

The character of Ripley in the Alien movies is considered to be one of the most kick ass female characters of all time. Cameron knows how to make his female characters more then just a girl who needs to be saved, or the girl who screams constantly. The fact that Cameron could easily have made the role a man, suggests that Dr. Grace Augustine will not need any help if she is confronted by any aliens in Avatar.