Thompson on Hollywood

Comic-Con: Disney 3-D Panel Showcases Burton, Depp, Zemeckis, Tron Legacy

Thursday was a long day. The official Comic-Con movie program began in Hall H with Disney's 3-D panel. "A lot of you are going to stay here all day," said host Patton Oswalt. The 6000-strong crowd roared. Bob Zemeckis broke his Comic-Con cherry with footage from the start of Christmas Carol, which stars Jim Carrey in five roles. Instead of heavy make-up, it's the Zemeckis brand of motion capture (in 3D and IMAX 3D), which I find stilted. (People tell me that seeing Polar Express in IMAX was transformative.) The audience went "Ooooh" when they first put on their 3D glasses as Scrooge inspected Marley's dead body and was visited by his green, chained ghost. "It's a ghost story," Zemeckis said.

By Anne Thompson
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July 24, 2009 3:12 AM
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First Look: Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

USA Today presents a first look at Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham-Carter and Anne Hathaway, pictured here as the Mad Hatter and the white and red queens, respectively. The on-line story allows you to explore cool large photos via zooms.

By Anne Thompson
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June 21, 2009 6:45 AM
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Cannes Day One: Up Up and Away

Cannes master promoter Thierry Fremaux knows what he is doing: the photo taken from the Debussy stage of the Cannes press corps wearing 3-D glasses will be seen everywhere. (They had to be returned.) I started out the morning in tears during Up , which as Disney chairman Dick Cook puts it, is Pixar's "most emotional film." Co-writers Bob Peterson and Pete Docter took the idea of an old guy who travels in a house carried aloft by balloons to find a lost South American paradise, and worked it over for a good two years before it passed enough muster to go into voice casting and animation.

By Anne Thompson
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May 13, 2009 4:19 AM
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3-D Conquers NAB

I'm out of my element in Vegas for my first-ever National Association of Broadcasters convention. Monday I did a Q & A with stop-motion auteur Henry Selick, who ran some nifty clips from Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and the surprise $74-million hit Coraline, which is starting to open in Europe. View this photo.

By Anne Thompson
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April 21, 2009 8:41 AM
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Monsters vs. Aliens Brings 3-D Invasion

One of the surprises of the year so far is how well Henry Selick‚Äôs 3-D animated gothic fairy tale Coraline lasted at the b.o.; this weekend brings DreamWorks Animation's Monsters vs. Aliens and a spate of 3-D offerings are on the way. Even the venerable Cannes Film Festival, which has made an annual tradition of unveiling the latest animated fare, will for the first time open the 62nd fest on May 13 with not only an animated movie but Disney/Pixar‚Äôs 3-D balloon adventure Up, which opens May 29.

By Anne Thompson
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March 24, 2009 7:11 AM
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3-D Future: Bearish or Bullish?

[Posted by David S. Cohen]In today's NYT, ">Brooks Barnes offers an especially gloomy take on 3-D and the problems getting theaters converted. The NYT gang seems bearish on Hollywood in general these days and this article is no exception. Barnes spoke to media analyst and author Harold Vogel and offered up this:

By Anne Thompson
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January 13, 2009 3:15 AM
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Avatar's James Cameron Talks 3D

Variety tech wonk David S. Cohen conducts an in-depth interview with James Cameron about something he knows a little bit about: 3D. An early believer and innovator in the technology that looks to revolutionize the way many movies are made, Cameron expounds at length. (He reveals some tech details on his next 3D effort, the long-awaited Avatar, due in 2009.) Here's a sampling of their email exchange:

By Anne Thompson
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April 11, 2008 6:05 AM
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ShoWest: DreamWorks Animation Goes 3D

The future is 3D, declared DreamWorks animation czar Jeffrey Katzenberg on Tuesday before showing the first piece of 3D footage created by DreamWorks--a redo of an entire scene from the upcoming 2D movie Kung Fu Panda in RealD. (Everyone seems to like these cool RealD glasses better than the clunkier Dolby ones.)