Coming attractions – possibly
MOST FILM workers probably already have their ears pricked for rumours of the next films employing. But just in case they don’t, here are some possibilities.
With James Cameron moving to Wairarapa there is a lot of speculation about what work the Avatar director will bring with him.
In May, Cameron told the New York Times he had three sequels to the 2009 biggestgrossing movie planned – taking up the rest of his career.
‘‘I’m making Avatar 2, Avatar 3, maybe Avatar 4, and I’m not going to produce other people’s movies for them. I’m not interested in taking scripts,’’ he said.
American media also quoted one of the film’s stars, Sigourney Weaver, as saying the trio of films could be made at the same time, starting this spring. What that means for New Zealand remains a bit of a mystery.
The Los Angeles Times reported last year that Cameron’s production company, Lightstorm Entertainment, signed a five-year lease to occupy 115,000-square-feet of soundstage and production office space at MBS Media Campus, at Manhattan Beach, in the United States. He was tipped to invest $5 million in studio improvements.
Wellington firm Weta Digital provided the visual effects for the original 3-D film and won an Oscar for its work.
About $362m was spent in New Zealand making it, offering years of employment on the computer-generated images for hundreds of digital animators in Wellington. Watch that space. Then there is the mysteriously absent Dambusters film announced in 2006, with Christian Rivers as director, Jackson as co-producer and Stephen Fry as screenwriter. In June 2010, Jackson said he was fine-tuning Fry’s script for the US$30m-US$40m budget film. He offered no definite date then.
There are, of course, Weta Digital and Weta Workshop’s websites for reference, but it looks like they may need updating.
Currently, The Avengers, Prometheus, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey, Elysium, Man of Steel and The Hobbit – There and Back Again are all listed as being in production.