James Cameron Flirting With 3D 'Cleopatra'

http://www.deadline.com/2010/10/james-cameron-flirting-with-cleopatra

James Cameron Flirting With 3D 'Cleopatra'
MIKE FLEMING | Thursday October 14, 2010

File this one under tantalizingly possible. James Cameron and Sony Pictures Entertainment are exploring the very real possibility that he will direct Angelina Jolie in a 3D version of Cleopatra, an SPE adaptation of the Stacy Schiff book Cleopatra: A Life. Jolie is attached and anxious to make the movie. Scott Rudin, who acquired the book, is producer. The talks are serious but by no means conclusive yet. Meanwhile, Deadline's Nikki Finke reports that Sony Pictures Entertainment Co-Chair Amy Pascal decided to fast-track its PG-13 and 3D Cleopatra project after screenwriter Bran Helgeland wrote what was is being described as a "brilliant script deserving of epic treatment" all about "what the Romans took from Egypt". In addition, Pascal wants to own the Angelina Jolie franchise the same way it owns the franchises of Adam Sandler and Will Smith because "she's a real star who can open a movie by herself" and "she knows she was born to play this part" because it's the "greatest female heroine" that ever lived. Pascal is hoping for a start date in 2011 but has acknowledged that "it won't be cheap" and is calling this her Gone With The Wind epic. Indeed, a project of this size and scope is a huge risk for any studio, especially considering how much attention will be focused on the production and the last time the story of Cleopatra was made into a movie. The Egyptian queen got her big screen closeup in the 1963 film with Elizabeth Taylor in the title role. Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed the film, which started with a $2 million budget that ballooned to $44 million (the equivalent of over $300 million today) not the least because Taylor became ill and almost died. The production nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox, despite being the year's highest grossing pic with $26 million. However, with James Cameron as director, he has the ability to produce a huge worldwide spectacle where every penny will be on the big screen. He has several of his own projects in the works, including a title called The Dive, but there is no other outside project he is looking at but this one as he develops the Avatar sequel.

Stacy Schiff's biography peels away the layers to reveal the true Cleopatra, a much more interesting woman than the Hollywood version, and, as it turns out, a formidable queen after all, according to reviews. A Pulitzer Prize-winning American nonfiction author and guest columnist for The New York Times, Schiff digs up astonishing and rare facts about the queen that could make the film into an entirely new story. Schiff herself has said about Jolie as Cleoptra, "physically, she's the perfect look, and is hoping for Brad Pitt to play Mark Antony (just as Liz Taylor's then lover, Richard Burton, did in the 1963 epic). "Angelina Jolie radiates grace and power, exactly the qualities that Stacy Schiff finds in her biography of the most intriguing ruler who ever lived," the book's publisher, Little Brown's Michael Pietsch, told reporters.

As for 35-year-old Jolie, she has been a tomb raider and a spy and even a queen (she played Queen Olympias in 2004's Alexander.) But she has had a lifelong fascination with Cleopatra and has always wanted to play the Queen of the Nile. She once told reporters: "I haven’t done a historical epic of that nature and she’s always been fascinating to me because I feel like, as much of her story has been done big, it’s never been done accurately. Not that any movie can get history perfectly well. There is no universal truth to history in some films, but you can get closer and I feel there’s a lot that has been unexplord about her. But there's a lot that would have to come together for that to work." And, as recently as at Sony's Salt premiere in Hollywood, she told reporters "I would be honored" to play Cleopatra in an upcoming new biopic. "But," Jolie added, "we haven't gotten the script yet." But then Helgeland's screenplay came in. Scott Rudin bought the rights to the book envisioning Jolie in the role from the very beginning and later acknowledging that Cleopatra "is being developed for and with Jolie".

Since then, Jolie has been heavily involved in the project. In still another interview, Jolie said, "I will play it differently to Elizabeth Taylor, but I could never be as lovely as she was. We are trying to uncover the truth about her as a leader and not just a sex symbol which she really wasn't -- she didn't have many lovers, maybe only two, and they're men she had children with." Angelina has said she was stunned by what she learned when she started researching Cleopatra. "She was misunderstood and her life story was written wrongly. I always thought her life was very glamorous. Then I read her story and found a different side to her - that she was a mother, leader and an intellect who spoke five languages! Her upbringing also reflected her relationship with Rome -- all that is much more interesting than what she was summed up to be."

The Jolie project isn't the only Cleopatra film to make headlines in recent years. In 2008, director Steven Soderbergh reportedly began developing Cleo, a 3D rock musical version of the Egyptian queen's story with Catherine Zeta-Jones in mind for the title role. The film fell by the wayside.
Cameron has done most of his directing at Fox with Titanic and Avatar, and he is hard at work on a sequel to the latter. As a producer, Cameron is making the Shane Salerno-scripted 3D reboot of Fantastic Voyage for Fox, but he is already working off campus, moonlighting at Universal as producer of At the Mountains of Madness, the adaptation of HP Lovecraft that Guillermo del Toro plans to direct in 3D.

‘Star Wars’ saga in 3-D will start in theaters in 2012

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2010/09/28/star-wars-saga-in-3d-will-start-in-theaters-in-2012/
‘Star Wars’ saga in 3-D will start in theaters in 2012
Sept. 28, 2010

Ben Fritz has big news from Skywalker Ranch...

George Lucas watched the massive success of “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland” in the 3-D format and decided it was time for a return of the Jedi.

“Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace” will return to theaters in 3-D in 2012 and will be followed in the stereoscopic format by the five other live-action movies set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic special-effects shop is overseeing the 3-D conversion. 20th Century Fox will release them, as it has done for all previous “Star Wars” films.

Lucas has said publicly on more than one occasion that the technological strides of James Cameron’s “Avatar” persuaded him to reconsider his longtime disdain for 3-D. After the Golden Globes, for instance, he told Access Hollywood that he was investigating the possibilities of converting his Skywalker family epic into the trendy format. “Haven’t been a big fan of 3-D, but that movie definitely improves in [the field of] 3-D … we’ve been looking for years and years and years of trying to take ‘Star Wars’ and put it in 3-D,” Lucas explained to “Access.” “But, [the] technology hasn’t been there. We’ve been struggling with it, but I think this will be a new impetus to make that happen.”

In a press release LucasFilm is expected to put out soon that was obtained by The Times, ILM visual effects supervisor John Knoll made clear that his company doesn’t intend to put out a sub-par 3-D conversion. Some conversions done in a rush have turned off moviegoers and critics.

“Getting good results on a stereo conversion is a matter of taking the time and getting it right,” Knoll said in a statement. “It takes a critical and artistic eye along with an incredible attention to detail to be successful. It is not something that you can rush if you want to expect good results. For ‘Star Wars’ we will take our time, applying everything we know both aesthetically and technically to bring audiences a fantastic new ‘Star Wars’ experience.”

Cameron plans to film Avatar sequel seven miles below the sea's surface

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1312406/Into-deadly-deep-How-James-Cameron-plans-film-Avatar-sequel-7-miles-seas-surface.html

As director James Cameron plans to film Avatar sequel seven miles below the sea's surface, we go into the deadly deep with the only two men who've been there
By Michael Hanlon
16th September 2010

Five thousand fathoms under the waves, a deafening clang rang out through the cramped, freezing submarine, causing the whole ­vessel to shake like a leaf.

Squinting through their tiny Plexiglas window into the abyss, the two explorers’ hearts missed
a beat.

‘It was a pretty hairy experience,’ they said afterwards with some understatement. The outer
layer of their porthole had cracked under the ­unimaginable weight of six miles of seawater — and they still had more than a mile to descend.

Enlarge Fortunately, their so-called ‘bathyscaphe’ ­submarine, an extraordinary piece of Swiss-­Italian-­German engineering, sustained no further damage, and the explorers — Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh — lived to tell the extraordinary tale of this unique descent.

Twelve men have walked on the surface of the Moon and maybe 500 have travelled into space, but only Piccard and Walsh have visited the very deepest point of the ocean, which they reached on January 23, 1960.

The Challenger Deep dive was one of the most extraordinary — and surprisingly little known — feats of human exploration in history, the voyage in a submarine to a place even more extreme than the surface of most planets.

Now it has been announced that the multi-Oscar-winning film director James Cameron plans to add his name to the very exclusive club of those who have travelled to the ­bottom of the Challenger Deep, part of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific, and the deepest known point in the world’s oceans.

Cameron — who, after all, made a fortune with Titanic — plans a follow-up to his billion-dollar 3D blockbuster Avatar, this time set in the teeming oceans of the film’s fictional alien planet of Pandora.

And last weekend it was reported that he has commissioned a bespoke submarine, built of high-tech, man-made composite materials and powered by electric motors, which will be capable of surviving the tremendous pressures at a depth of seven miles, from which he will shoot 3D footage that may be incorporated in Avatar’s sequel.

It seems bizarre that no one has repeated the feat of Piccard and Walsh in more than half a century (two unmanned submersible robots have made the trip since). But then no one has to date built a working replacement for their vessel, the Trieste.

Designed by Challenger Deep pilot Jacques Piccard’s father, the Swiss scientist Auguste Piccard, and mostly built in Italy, the Trieste, which was bought by the U.S. Navy in 1958, is a truly extraordinary vessel.

Most deep-diving craft up to that point (and, indeed, up to today) were tethered vessels, linked to their ‘motherships’ on the surface by steel cables and umbilical cords to ­aid breathing.

The 50ft-long Trieste was, in ­contrast, a wholly self-contained submarine, free-diving and with its own life-support systems. It was not attached to the surface in any way during its extraordinary five-hour descent to the ocean floor.

The Trieste in some ways resembled an underwater airship. It consisted of two parts: a huge cigar-shaped ­‘balloon’ filled with 22,500 gallons of petrol to provide buoyancy (petrol is lighter than water).

Attached underneath this balloon was a tiny steel sphere, manufactured by Krupp of West Germany, just 7ft across, into which the pilots were crammed.

Effectively, it worked like a hot air balloon underwater, since the petrol in the balloon was incompressible, unlike air. So even at great pressure, the ­petrol balloon kept its shape and the craft remained buoyant.

But if the petrol in the balloon was lighter than water, how did the submarine descend? Nine tons of iron ­pellets were attached to the craft to make it sink — and when the pilots wanted to ascend again, they were ­jettisoned on to the ocean floor.

During the dive, temperatures in the dank, unheated pressure sphere fell to a few degrees above zero, and the ­shivering pilots ate chocolate bars to conserve their strength.

At 30,000ft below the ocean surface, the outermost layer of their small Plexiglas porthole cracked, sending shockwaves reverberating through the submarine. Fortunately, the thick, cone-shaped block of transparent plastic in the window held.

After nearly five hours, descending at a rate of less than two knots, the Trieste settled a few inches above the floor of the lowest point on the Earth’s surface, a depth of 10,916m (35,814ft), where the crew spent 20 anxious minutes.

Conditions at the bottom of the Challenger Deep are almost ­unimaginable. Here, the seawater is more than a mile deeper than Everest is high, generating pressures of more than eight tonnes (the weight of a double-decker bus) per square inch.

The total force on the Trieste’s sealed capsule thus amounted to more than 177,000 metric tons. Even the strongest, titanium-hulled military submarines, built by the USSR, can dive no deeper than 3,000ft, sustaining hull pressures of ‘only’ 1,600lb per square inch.

The reason the Trieste could withstand the pressure was not only that its petrol balloon was incompressible, but also that the reinforced sphere in which its pilots sat was so tiny.

Even at the surface of the planet Venus, considered one of the most hostile environments in the solar system, ambient pressures are a mere sixteenth of those at the ­bottom of the Challenger Deep.

At the very bottom of the Pacific, it is pitch black; not a single photon of sunlight can penetrate to these depths. And it is cold, too. On the abyssal floor, water temperatures hover at a constant zero degrees.

No unprotected diver could possibly survive such extreme conditions. At these pressures the body’s many air-filled cavities would implode.

Despite this there is, amazingly, life. Piccard and Walsh, peering through their tiny porthole
and playing the Trieste’s external electric lamps onto the seabed through the crystal-clear water, saw several creatures, including a flounder-like flatfish and some shrimps. Oddly, the fish had eyes, even though there was no light with which to see.

The presence of clearly healthy marine animals shows that at these depths some oxygen must be present in the water — something thought unlikely before the expedition.

Piccard later said that ‘by far the most interesting find was the fish that came floating by our porthole. We were astounded to find higher marine life forms down there at all.’ The seabed itself down there ­consists of a thick layer of ooze, formed by the skeletons of trillions of microscopic sea creatures. At these depths, there are few currents and the water is very nearly still.

The Challenger Deep is at the southern end of the Mariana Trench, a 1,600-mile-long, arc-shaped, undersea chasm to the east of the Philippines. The trench is five to seven miles deep and 43 miles across, and is formed as a result of one vast slab of the Earth’s crust — the Pacific ­tectonic plate — being thrust westwards at a rate of a few inches a year underneath another, the smaller Mariana Plate.

This caused a gigantic geological fault called a subduction zone.

The Pacific is ringed by huge, active, grinding faults such as this, which give rise to the earthquakes and volcanoes that make life around the edge of this ocean so perilous.

So how is the film-maker and part-time scientist Cameron planning to follow in Piccard and Walsh’s footsteps? Not in the Trieste, which is on display at the Navy Museum in Washington DC.

According to the reports, Cameron has commissioned a team of ­Australian engineers to design and build a submersible capable of ­taking him to the floor of the ­Challenger Deep, and capable of filming in 3D at these depths.

The precise design of this submersible is unclear, but it is likely that it will resemble the $4million Deep Flight Challenger commissioned by the American aviator and explorer Steve Fossett in 2007.
Fossett was killed in a plane crash that same year, just before his ­Challenger was due to start sea ­trials. Fossett’s estate owns the submarine, which has never been used, but the design is the property of San Francisco-based firm Hawkes Ocean Technologies, founded by British engineer Graham Hawkes.

What is known is that it was ­constructed from Kevlar — used in body armour — and carbon fibre, and had a transparent dome made from pressure-resistant resin.

Hawkes Ocean Technologies have told me that they are not building Cameron’s submarine, although they have worked with him in the past, ­supplying submersibles used in the 2005 documentary movie he directed called Aliens Of The Deep.

The Hawkes design uses a ­completely different way of reaching the ocean floor to that used by the Trieste. Rather than passively sinking, the 17ft-long Challenger actively ‘flies’ downwards, using hydroplanes and electrically powered thrusters to descend. And unlike the Trieste, the Challenger can be manoeuvred with ease at depth.

If Cameron succeeds in his voyage to the bottom of the sea, what will he find? In all likelihood nothing more than the etiolated crustacea and fish spotted by Piccard and Walsh. But the abyssal floor at the bottom of this trench remains by far the least explored environment on Earth. Indeed, we have better maps of the surface of Mars than we do of the bottom of the Pacific.

And this means there are bound to be surprises. Many scientists ­suspect that some large animals, giant squid and perhaps even whales may occasionally plunge to extreme depths and survive, despite the cold, the pressure, the lack of light and absence of food.

And a few years ago a loud underwater noise nicknamed the ‘bloop’ was picked up by U.S. Navy sonars. It appeared to be coming from deep in the Pacific ocean. To this day no one knows its origin, though theories abound — ranging from a top-secret Russian submarine to some sort of gigantic sea monster new to science.

The fantastical colours of the big screen planet of Pandora, the ­fictional setting of Avatar, are unlikely to be present in this inky world of greys and browns.

But it is, just about, possible that Cameron may glimpse something just as alien as the weird and ­wonderful beasts he imagined into being in his last movie.

James Cameron Will Make Record-Setting $350M From 'Avatar'

http://www.deadline.com/2010/07/exclusive-james-cameron-will-make-record-setting-350m-from-avatar/
James Cameron Will Make Record-Setting $350M From 'Avatar'
Nikki Finke | Friday July 9, 2010

I'm told this will be the biggest financial haul ever for a movie director from a single pic because James Cameron had a significant gross percentage of the Twentieth Century Fox megahit as helmer, writer, and producer. Though Hollywood pay experts tell me that the $350M all-in figure is largely attributable to his directing deal structured as "first dollar" gross or more likely "at cash break" gross. It's certainly bigger than either he or the studio -- or anyone -- thought he'd make from Avatar which, after its December 2009 release date, has grossed a best-ever $2.7 billion worldwide at the box office. "But Cameron is making $350 million because the DVD did beyond expectation," an insider tells me. Indeed, its 2D DVD and Blu-Ray worldwide sales smashed records in all categories. And still to come is the release of its 3D DVD in November. Meanwhile, yesterday, Twentieth Century Fox and Cameron announced that a "Special Edition" Avatar will be released in theaters August 27th as a limited engagement and exclusively in Digital 3D and IMAX 3D. This version will include more than 8 minutes of new footage. "With Cameron making $350 million, can you imagine what Fox and Dune Entertainment and Ingenious Media are making?" one of my insiders wondered, referring to the three companies that together bankrolled Avatar. And let's not forget there'll be an Avatar sequel... and maybe a threequel as part of what Cameron has been calling a "trilogy-scaled arc of story". And the production costs on the subsequent films should be far less because they've honed the 3D filmmaking technology process.

Forbes magazine about a week ago placed Cameron only #2 on its Celebrity 100 money ranking this year of the richest and most powerful actors, actresses, musicians and other well known showbiz figures. In fact, based on my insiders, Cameron should have been #1 because his $350M far exceeds the $315M which the magazine said top-ranked Oprah Winfrey earned. Forbes underestimated the director's pay at only $210M.

My sources tell me that Cameron's $350M take from Avatar also eclipses his reported $97M haul from the previous #1 biggest movie worldwide, Titanic. But that figure will go higher, too. Earlier this year, Cameron revealed that Titanic will be re-released in 3D in April 2012, in order to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the actual ship. In total, Cameron's directorial efforts have grossed approximately $5.75 billion worldwide.

It's now the stuff of Hollywood legend that Cameron wrote the script for Avatar back in the mid-1990s when he and Stan Winston co-founded Digital Domain. He took the screenplay to their special effects lab only to be told it was just not possible to make the film with the current technology. So he sat on the project for more than a decade. To make Avatar, Cameron created the Fusion Camera System technology for photo-realistic computer-generated characters through motion capture animation. So the director has an ever brighter financial future because he now can sell that technology to 3D filmmakers all over the world. And he'll get top dollar for it, to be sure.

'Hurt Locker' is best picture, wins six Oscars

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/07/academy.awards.night/
'Hurt Locker' is best picture, wins six Oscars
Alan Duke, CNN
March 8, 2010
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Hurt Locker" is best picture; Kathryn Bigelow wins best director
"Hurt Locker" wins six Oscars; "Avatar" has three, "Precious" two
Sandra Bullock wins best actress for "The Blind Side," Jeff Bridges is best actor for "Crazy Heart"
"Precious" star Mo'Nique wins supporting actress; "Inglourious Basterds" Christoph Waltz is supporting actor

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- The final score: David 6, Goliath 3.

"The Hurt Locker" earned six Oscars at the 82nd annual Academy Awards Sunday night, taking home the biggest prize -- best picture -- as well as honors for its director, original screenplay, sound editing, sound mixing and film editing.

The small-budget movie, one of the lowest-grossing films to be nominated in the post-"Star Wars" blockbuster era, defeated its primary competition, James Cameron's "Avatar," the big-budget, highest-grossing film of all time. The groundbreaking "Avatar," with its dazzling effects and creative presentation, won three Oscars, for cinematography, visual effects and art direction.

Both films led the pack with nine nominations each.

"The Hurt Locker," a film about a bomb disposal unit in the early part of the Iraq War, developed its momentum slowly, winning notice at festivals in the latter part of 2008 before earning a national release in the summer of 2009. Despite fading quickly at the box office -- to date, it's earned just $21 million worldwide, versus more than $2.6 billion for "Avatar" -- it was remembered by critics and peers at the end of the year, winning several awards.

"Locker" director Kathryn Bigelow made history by becoming the first woman to win the directing prize. Presenter Barbra Streisand opened the envelope with, "Well, the time has come!" as a loud standing ovation and lots of shrieks greeted Bigelow's arrival on the stage.

"There's no other way to describe it -- it's the moment of a lifetime," she said, accepting her directing prize. She dedicated her honor "to the women and men in the military who risk their lives on a daily basis... may they come home safe."

Earlier, writer and producer Mark Boal, who based the script on his reporting from Iraq, paid tribute to director Bigelow, "all of the soldiers still over there and those who have died" and to his father, who passed away a month ago, he said in his acceptance speech.

The acting awards were divided between old favorites and rising newcomers.

Sandra Bullock won best actress for her performance as a forceful mother who brings a homeless teen into her well-off family in "The Blind Side."

Bullock started her speech with jokes, paying tribute to her "lover, Meryl Streep" -- a fellow nominee -- and asking, "Did I really earn this or did I just wear you all down?" But her voice cracked with emotion as she dedicated her award to "the moms that take care of the babies and the children, no matter where they come from," and then turned her attention to her own mother, whom Bullock described as firm but supportive.

Jeff Bridges won the best actor Oscar for his performance as an alcohol-soaked country singer in "Crazy Heart."

"Thank you, Academy members!" he exulted, raising his Oscar high. "Thank you Mom and Dad for turning me on to such a groovy profession. ... They loved showbiz so much, and I feel like an extension of them. This is as much for them as it is for me."

Bridges' father was Lloyd Bridges, star of the TV show "Sea Hunt" and many movies, and his mother was actress Dorothy Bridges.

The nominated song from "Crazy Heart," "The Weary Kind," won best original song.

Get backstage with the Oscars on the Marquee Blog

Mo'Nique won the best supporting actress Oscar for her role as Mary Jones, an abusive mother in "Precious."

In a fierce and memorable acceptance speech, she thanked the Oscar voters "for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics."

"I want to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she did so I don't have to," Mo'Nique said.

McDaniel was the first African-American to win an Academy Award when she was given the best supporting actress Oscar for playing Mammy in the 1939 film "Gone with the Wind."

Mo'Nique said before the show that she was wearing a gardenia in her hair in tribute to McDaniel, because she wore one for her acceptance speech 70 years ago.

She also thanked Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, who helped director Lee Daniels land a distribution deal for the movie.

"Because you touched it, the whole world saw it," Mo'Nique said.

Backstage, Mo'Nique was asked whether she still considered herself a stand-up comedian now that she is an Oscar-winning actress.

"I am a standup comedian who won an Oscar," she said.

The success of her role "was so not about my acting career," she said. "This role was about my life, to teach me not to judge."

The story of a downtrodden inner-city teenager also pulled off a mild upset earlier, winning best adapted screenplay over perceived front-runner "Up in the Air."

"I don't know what to say," said visibly moved writer Geoffrey Fletcher, paying tribute to the filmmakers, his two brothers, his mother and father. "I thank everyone," said Fletcher, gasping emotionally.

Christoph Waltz won the first Oscar of the night, a best supporting actor award for "Inglourious Basterds."

"This is your welcoming embrace, and there's no way I can ever thank you enough," Waltz said. "But I can start right now, thank you."

"Up" won best animated feature, yet another victory for the Pixar studios, which has dominated the category since its introduction for the 2002 awards. Pixar has now won three straight animated feature Oscars and five of the nine overall. Michael Giacchino's music for the film won best score.

Best foreign language film went to "The Secret in Their Eyes," from Argentina. "The Cove" won best documentary feature.

Hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin kept the ceremony moving until the big-award slowdown at the end. The two were lowered from the ceiling after an over-the-top opening number featuring a singing-and-dancing Neil Patrick Harris, and maintained a Bob Hope/Bing Crosby rhythm through much of the festivities, zinging one-liners at all and sundry.

And in a moving tribute, several stars of John Hughes movies -- including Molly Ringwald, Matthew Broderick, Jon Cryer, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall and Macaulay Culkin -- came out to talk about the director of "The Breakfast Club" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," who died in 2009. Hughes' family, which was sitting in the audience, received an ovation.

CNN's Todd Leopold contributed to this story.

Is the 'Avatar' concept really possible?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/03/avatar.technology.science/

Is the 'Avatar' concept really possible?
Elizabeth Landau, CNN
February 3, 2010
Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) contemplates the avatar body he will inhabit via brain signals in the Oscar-nominated "Avatar."
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Scientists say we are far from making "Avatar's" human-avatar interaction possible, if at all
A monkey in North Carolina mentally controlled the walking patterns of a robot in Japan
The record in one researcher's lab for typing with the mind is 20 words per minute
Expert: "Avatar" "shouldn't be taken as anything but fantasy"

(CNN) -- Now the highest-grossing film ever, "Avatar," has captivated millions of viewers with its picturesque scenery, extraterrestrial battles, and nature-loving, blue-skinned aliens.

The premise of the film is that humans can enter the world of these 10-foot aliens, called the Na'vi, by way of half-human, half-Na'vi hybrids. A high-tech interfacing mechanism allows a human to remain inert while controlling one of these avatar hybrids just by thinking.

Not only does the human manipulate the avatar's movements and speech, but he or she also experiences life -- every sensation, feeling and emotion -- through the eyes of the hybrid, as if consciousness were transferred.

Scientists say we are many decades, even centuries, away from making this kind of sophisticated interaction possible, if it can be done at all. But the fundamentals of components required to create this complicated system of mind-controlled avatars are already in the works, and have useful applications in medicine.

"We're starting to understand the basic building blocks, but the biggest challenges will be emotion and thought -- how to make another organism think what you think, to feel what you feel -- because those networks are much more difficult to sort out," said Dr. Brian Litt, associate professor of neurology and bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania.

Moving remote objects by thinking

Although nothing as complex as manipulating a creature through thought has been done, scientists working on allowing handicapped people to move prosthetic limbs with their minds are making headway. This idea actually played a role in the movie: Protagonist Jake Sully was in a wheelchair in his human body, but could walk, run and jump as his avatar.

One demonstration has been shown by Miguel Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke University, who is working on robotic leg braces. In 2008, his group got a monkey in North Carolina to mentally control the walking patterns of a robot in Japan.

This was done by implanting electrodes in the brains of two rhesus monkeys. The electrodes recorded how cells in the brain's motor and sensory cortex responded to walking on the treadmill at various speeds. The monkeys' legs also had sensors to record walking patterns.

Researchers used all this information to predict the exact speed of movement and stride length of the legs, and uploaded that information to a robot in Japan, getting the robot to move in synch with a monkey thousands of miles away in real time. Even when the treadmill was turned off, a monkey continued making the robot walk just by thinking for a few minutes.

Another arena is one of virtual reality: controlling an avatar in a video game with your mind. Jaime Pineda, cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, is working with a brain-computer interface that allows participants to move a car around a racetrack, fly a plane and do other virtual tasks on a screen, simply by thinking. The mental training for this takes about four to six hours, he said.

"It is based on the motor parts of your brain. That's what we're recording from, and so if you think about moving, it's actually as if you are actually moving," he said.

Apart from the entertainment value, Pineda sees this as a future therapy for autistic children. The theory is that because people with autism have less conductivity between various parts of the brain, participating in mind-controlled video games may normalize those circuits. Results from his lab show improvement in social interaction and other behaviors after 10 or 20 weeks of playing the game in the lab.

Uploading information

For an "Avatar"-style brain-computer interface, an enormous amount of data would have to be transferred from the person to the avatar extremely quickly, Litt said.

Here's what's possible now: Scientists such as Gerwin Schalk at the New York State Department of Health's Wadsworth Center have harnessed the brain's electrical impulses to have people mentally type their thoughts using electrodes on the surface of the head. The rate is typically seven words per minute. In one epileptic patient who had electrodes already on the brain for clinical purposes, the record was 20 words per minute.

This kind of technology is useful for people who are paralyzed and cannot communicate, Schalk said. His research group also works on using electrodes to extract specific information from the brain such as people's actual actions, imagined actions and intended actions -- even how they move individual fingers.

The research "has changed that widespread assumption that it's not really impossible to acquire detailed information from the brain in humans," Schalk said.

Understanding brain networks

In order to construct a high-tech interface that would allow two-way communication between an avatar and a person, there must be a better understanding of the brain itself, Litt said.

Litt's group studies the brain's networks involved in epilepsy. The researchers are looking at the abnormal circuits to figure out the basic units of the brain that generate seizures. They have licensed intellectual property for a device that can improve epilepsy by stimulating specific brain regions, potentially eliminating the need for surgery.

"I see tremendous possibilities for more and more ability to unlock these networks," he said.

Transferal of sensations and emotions

The area of this "avatar science" that will be most difficult to sort out is being able to feel and think as the avatar, Litt said.

Today there are auditory prostheses called cochlear implants that encode signals that allow people to hear who could not otherwise, as well as rudimentary visual aids. It is also possible to stick a pin in a particular part of someone's brain and induce sensations of various temperatures, pressures and even pain levels, just by stimulating certain neural circuits.

"But there's a far cry from doing that to being able to make somebody feel an emotion or see something," Litt said.

The technical hurdles, including transferring huge amounts of information extremely rapidly and building devices to both extract signals from the brain and inject signals into the brain, are significant, he said.

Clearly, people aren't going to be able to climb into personal pods and use their brains to remotely control 10-foot-tall creatures any time soon. Andrew Schwartz, neuroscientist at the University of Pittsburgh, added in an e-mail that it is not even clear what "consciousness" is. There's no rigorous definition, and how it looks in the brain is unknown.

"It's a wonderful movie, but it shouldn't be taken as anything but fantasy," he said.

‘Avatar’ Claims Highest Gross of All Time

http://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2667&p=.htm

‘Avatar’ Claims Highest Gross of All Time
by Brandon Gray
February 3, 2010

Avatar has sailed past Titanic to become the highest-grossing movie of all time. In just 47 days, Avatar has grossed $601.1 million, while Titanic made $600.8 million in its entire run and took 252 days to cross the $600 million mark.

With this milestone, Avatar has completed the triple crown of box office gross records: first, it topped the foreign-only chart on Jan. 23, then it reigned over the worldwide chart (foreign plus domestic) on Jan. 25, and now, as of Feb. 2, it resides atop the domestic chart. Its foreign haul has risen to $1.474 billion. Add in domestic, and its worldwide gross stands at an incredible $2.075 billion.

Breaking domestic down, nearly 81 percent of Avatar's gross is from 3D presentations. Normal 3D accounts for over 64 percent of the gross, while IMAX 3D accounts for more than 16 percent. That leaves the 2D theaters with an over 19 percent share of the gross.

According to the National Association of Theater Owners, the latest available statistic for national average ticket price is $7.61 for the fourth quarter of 2009. IMAX claims an average ticket price of $14.58, but, at the time of this writing, there is no official word for regular 3D presentations. A survey of theaters across the country suggests a $2 to $4 premium for 3D over 2D and a $10 average ticket price (we'll update with better data as we dig it up). With these stats one can estimate 38.7 million tickets have been sold in regular 3D, 15.2 million sold in 2D and 6.8 million tickets sold in IMAX 3D.

All told, Avatar's estimated admission count is 60.7 million thus far, or less than Titanic through the same point (47 days in). It's also less than half of Titanic's 128 million total estimated admissions. Emphasizing the impressiveness of Avatar, it took such recent blockbusters as The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Spider-Man 2, The Passion of the Christ and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith their entire runs to reach around 60 million admissions.

Unfortunately, the industry does not track admissions, only dollars. Absent proper admissions tracking, estimated admissions are determined by dividing the grosses by the average ticket prices, but this method is certainly iffy and should not be seen as definitive. It's best used for recent releases that have complete box office records, but, even then, one may know the national average ticket price but not the average for an individual movie. The audiences vary demographically and regionally for each movie, which means different average ticket prices. What's more, for a picture like Avatar, the method does not address leveling the playing field for the possible deterrent of higher ticket prices, how the 3D presentations impact 2D attendance or how 3D currently has far fewer theaters than past 2D blockbusters.

However, it's better to have an approximation than to have nothing. Only the money may matter to Hollywood, but attendance is important from an audience and cultural perspective. The disparity between Avatar and Titanic is so huge according to this method, that it is safe to say that Titanic sold a boatload more tickets.

Pointing out the estimated admissions in no way diminishes the box office achievement of Avatar. The purpose is to add perspective. There is no doubt that Avatar is a phenomenon in its own right with its own unique set of circumstances and that it stands as one of the greatest box office runs of all time.

List of 82nd annual Academy Award nominations

http://oscars.movies.yahoo.com/news/376-list-of-82nd-annual-academy-award-nominations-ap

List of 82nd annual Academy Award nominations
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Associated Press

Complete list of 82nd Annual Academy Award nominations announced Tuesday:

1. Best Picture: "Avatar," "The Blind Side," "District 9," "An Education," "The Hurt Locker," "Inglourious Basterds," "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," "A Serious Man," "Up," "Up in the Air."

2. Actor: Jeff Bridges, "Crazy Heart"; George Clooney, "Up in the Air"; Colin Firth, "A Single Man"; Morgan Freeman, "Invictus"; Jeremy Renner, "The Hurt Locker."

3. Actress: Sandra Bullock, "The Blind Side"; Helen Mirren, "The Last Station"; Carey Mulligan, "An Education"; Gabourey Sidibe, "Precious: Based on the Novel `Push' by Sapphire"; Meryl Streep, "Julie & Julia."

4. Supporting Actor: Matt Damon, "Invictus"; Woody Harrelson, "The Messenger"; Christopher Plummer, "The Last Station"; Stanley Tucci, "The Lovely Bones"; Christoph Waltz, "Inglourious Basterds."

5. Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, "Nine"; Vera Farmiga, "Up in the Air"; Maggie Gyllenhaal, "Crazy Heart"; Anna Kendrick, "Up in the Air"; Mo'Nique, "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire."

6. Directing: James Cameron, "Avatar"; Kathryn Bigelow, "The Hurt Locker"; Quentin Tarantino, "Inglourious Basterds"; Lee Daniels, "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire"; Jason Reitman, "Up in the Air."

7. Foreign Language Film: "Ajami," Israel; "El Secreto de Sus Ojos," Argentina; "The Milk of Sorrow," Peru; "Un Prophete," France; "The White Ribbon," Germany.

8. Adapted Screenplay: Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, "District 9"; Nick Hornby, "An Education"; Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche, "In the Loop"; Geoffrey Fletcher, "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire"; Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, "Up in the Air."

9. Original Screenplay: Mark Boal, "The Hurt Locker"; Quentin Tarantino, "Inglourious Basterds"; Alessandro Camon and Oren Moverman, "The Messenger"; Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, "A Serious Man"; Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Tom McCarthy, "Up."

10. Animated Feature Film: "Coraline"; "Fantastic Mr. Fox"; "The Princess and the Frog"; "The Secret of Kells"; "Up."

11. Art Direction: "Avatar," "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," "Nine," "Sherlock Holmes," "The Young Victoria."

12. Cinematography: "Avatar," "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," "The Hurt Locker," "Inglourious Basterds," "The White Ribbon."

13. Sound Mixing: "Avatar," "The Hurt Locker," "Inglourious Basterds," "Star Trek," "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen."

14. Sound Editing: "Avatar," "The Hurt Locker," "Inglourious Basterds," "Star Trek," "Up."

15. Original Score: "Avatar," James Horner; "Fantastic Mr. Fox," Alexandre Desplat; "The Hurt Locker," Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders; "Sherlock Holmes," Hans Zimmer; "Up," Michael Giacchino.

16. Original Song: "Almost There" from "The Princess and the Frog," Randy Newman; "Down in New Orleans" from "The Princess and the Frog," Randy Newman; "Loin de Paname" from "Paris 36," Reinhardt Wagner and Frank Thomas; "Take It All" from "Nine," Maury Yeston; "The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)" from "Crazy Heart," Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett.

17. Costume: "Bright Star," "Coco Before Chanel," "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," "Nine," "The Young Victoria."

18. Documentary Feature: "Burma VJ," "The Cove," "Food, Inc." "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers," "Which Way Home."

19. Documentary (short subject): "China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province," "The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner," "The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant," "Music by Prudence," "Rabbit a la Berlin."

20. Film Editing: "Avatar," "District 9," "The Hurt Locker," "Inglourious Basterds," "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire."

21. Makeup: "Il Divo," "Star Trek," "The Young Victoria."

22. Animated Short Film: "French Roast," "Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty," "The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)," "Logorama," "A Matter of Loaf and Death."

23. Live Action Short Film: "The Door," "Instead of Abracadabra," "Kavi," "Miracle Fish," "The New Tenants."

24. Visual Effects: "Avatar," "District 9," "Star Trek."

"Avatar" becomes king of the (box office) world

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/01/avatar-becomes-king-of-the-box-office-world-.html

"Avatar" becomes king of the (box office) world
January 26, 2010

Self-proclaimed "king of the world" director James Cameron has just upstaged himself.

The filmmaker's sci-fi fantasy epic "Avatar" has surpassed his own 1997 record-setting disaster movie "Titanic" to become the highest-grossing movie ever, not accounting for ticket price inflation, foreign currency fluctuations and surcharges on 3-D screens.

Through Monday, "Avatar" racked up $1.85 billion in worldwide ticket sales, edging past "Titanic's" $1.84 billion -- a feat it achieved in less than 40 days, according to the film's distributor, 20th Century Fox.

"Avatar's" domestic take of $554.9 million still slightly trails "Titanic's" $600.7 million, but overseas it has taken in slightly more, $1.30 billion to the earlier film's $1.24 billion.

However, "Titanic" still rules the universe in terms of how many people went to see it compared to the number that have lined up for "Avatar."

As Bruce Nash estimates on his box office site the-numbers.com, domestic ticket sales for "Avatar" would have to reach $925 million in today's dollars to match, on an inflation-adjusted basis, the box office that "Titanic" achieved in 1997. Given the current estimated average ticket prices of $7.46, "Avatar" still needs to sell about 50 million more tickets before it matches the inflation-adjusted domestic gross of "Titanic."

While it may be a long shot that "Avatar" would ever reach that milestone, the film continues to have strong "legs," which in Hollywood parlance means staying power. Its weekend-to-weekend box office declines have been minimal compared with that of a typical movie.

In its sixth weekend, the movie dropped only 18% domestically and 16% internationally, according to Fox.

"Avatar" is still playing on 16,000 screens worldwide, with 72% of its ticket sales coming from 3-D screens.

We're now waiting to hear what Cameron will say at the Oscars on March 7 if he and "Avatar" take top honors. How about "I'm lord of the universe"?

--Claudia Eller

Avatar Photo of the Week

"Avatar" Leads U.S. Box Office for Fifth Weekend

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=9585797

"Avatar" Leads U.S. Box Office for Fifth Weekend
January 17, 2010

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Avatar" logged a fifth consecutive weekend as the top choice at the North American box office on Sunday, and moved up to the No. 3 spot on the all-time chart, distributor 20th Century Fox said.

Writer/director James Cameron's sci-fi spectacular earned $41.3 million during the three-day period beginning Friday, taking its total to $491.8 million.

The only movies ahead of it on the all-time chart are Cameron's "Titanic" ($601 million) and "The Dark Knight" ($533 million). The No. 3 slot was previously held by "Star Wars" ($461 million).

"Titanic" was the last movie to lead the box office for five consecutive weekends, in 1998, although "Avatar" might struggle to reach its record of 15 unbroken weekends.

Fox, a unit of News Corp, does expect "Avatar" to surpass "Dark Knight" by next weekend, and now believes it could pass "Titanic" as well -- with a lot of help from ticket-price inflation and premium pricing for 3-D screenings.

Adjusted for inflation, "Avatar" ranks at a humble No. 40, according to tracking firm Box Office Mojo.

"Avatar" denied Denzel Washington's new picture "The Book of Eli" a shot at the top slot. Directing twins Allen and Albert Hughes' Christian-themed apocalyptic picture opened at No. 2 with $31.6 million, Warner Bros. Pictures said. The studio is a unit of Time Warner Inc.

(Reporting by Dean Goodman; Editing by Eric Beech)

'Avatar' soars into $1-billion territory

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-boxoffice4-2010jan04,0,4580669.story

BOX OFFICE
'Avatar' soars into $1-billion territory
Strong foreign ticket sales help make the science-fiction movie the fifth in history to pass the watermark.
Ben Fritz
January 4, 2010

One of the riskiest movies of all times is now officially one of the most successful at the box office.

When "Avatar" opened, its solid but far from stellar results left 20th Century Fox uncertain about whether the $430 million that it and two financing partners had invested to produce and market the 3-D film would pay off.

Less than three weeks later, there's no doubt. Director James Cameron's science-fiction epic on Sunday became only the fifth movie in history to gross more than $1 billion worldwide and, by far, was the fastest to do so.

The first three days of 2010 were spectacular for the movie industry, a feat considering that no new movies opened Friday. Every film in the top 10 dropped less than 38% from the previous weekend; a drop of less than 40% usually is seen as a modest figure.

Three of last week's releases -- "Sherlock Holmes," "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" and "It's Complicated" -- continued to have strong box-office appeal, but "Nine" was unable to recover from its disastrous start.

Total receipts were up 50% from the first weekend last year, setting Hollywood off to a strong start after a year in which domestic ticket sales grew 10% and attendance rose nearly 6%, according to Hollywood.com.

Ticket sales for "Avatar" fell only 10% in the U.S. and Canada to a studio-estimated $68.3 million, the biggest-ever third-weekend take. It blew away the previous record of $45 million set by "Spider-Man" in 2002, even accounting for inflation.

With $352.1 million already in the bank from domestic theaters, "Avatar" is on track to end up with at least $450 million domestically and perhaps significantly more if declines stay modest.

But "Avatar" has been strongest overseas, where it grossed $133.5 million in 110 markets this weekend, bringing its total to $670.2 million. It is already the fourth-highest grossing movie internationally and soon is expected to become the second, surpassing the $752 million collected by "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King."

"Avatar" already is the highest-grossing film ever in Russia, the fourth-highest in Spain and Australia, and the second-biggest U.S. movie ever in France, India and South Korea. It opens Monday in China, an increasingly lucrative market for effects-laden pictures.

Its only real competition in raking in more money than any film ever is Cameron's last film, "Titanic," which grossed $1.8 billion in 1997 and 1998. To beat that mark, "Avatar," which is currently at $1.03 billion, would have to keep generating big returns well into February or March.

Theaters with 3-D screens have accounted for about 75% of its returns in the U.S. and Canada and 59% to 88% in major foreign countries.

Ticket sales for Warner Bros.' re-imagining of "Sherlock Holmes," with Robert Downey Jr. in the starring role, dropped 38% in its second weekend, more than any other movie in the top 10. But with $38.4 million this weekend and a domestic total of $140.7 million, it's on solid ground given its $90-million production budget.

"Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" slid 25% from its opening, collecting $36.6 million and bringing its total ticket sales since Dec. 23 to a healthy $157.4 million. Fox and New Regency spent $70 million to produce the family film.

Universal Pictures' romantic comedy "It's Complicated," starring Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin, fell 15% in weekend receipts, bolstering director Nancy Meyers' reputation for making movies that play well for a long period of time. It grossed $18.7 million over the weekend and has collected a total of $59.1 million domestically. If declines stay small, Universal and Relativity Media should make good on the roughly $85 million they spent to make the movie.

The musical adaptation "Nine," which was financed by Weinstein Co. and Relativity, dropped only 22% from its Christmas Day opening in wide release. After a dismal start, however, its $4.3-million weekend leaves it with a total of just $14 million.

Several movies in the top 10 saw ticket sales increase this weekend, an unusual occurrence. Receipts for "The Blind Side" grew 10%, and "The Princess and the Frog" rose 11%.

But "Princess," Disney's first hand-drawn cartoon in five years, is at roughly the same domestic total after four weeks in wide release as such financially disappointing recent animated features from the studio as "Bolt" and "Meet the Robinsons."

Among movies playing on only a handful of screens, "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus," directed by Terry Gilliam and starring Johnny Depp and the late Heath Ledger, took in a solid $130,817 at four theaters, bringing its total after two weeks to $348,677.

ben.fritz@latimes.com

Mini-review: Avatar

David McGowan

Word on the street is that Avatar will change the way movies are made. I guess that means that, from this point forward, all movies will feature clichéd, one-dimensional characters; a complete lack of character development; ridiculously predictable scripts without a single original plot element; laughably stiff acting (with the notable exception of Ms. Saldana); and embarrassingly bad dialogue. I can hardly wait...