Will Decide On Whether Or Not He Directs Once He Gets A Script
While there is some hand-wringing going on in the industry about whether or not oversaturating the market with (shitty) 3D movies will kill interest in the format with audiences, let’s not kid ourselves. Hollywood loves 3D. It’s a shiny new spectacle that gets asses into seats, and it may even help with with dwindling home video sales, providing a pretty compelling reason for those who are not yet Blu-ray converts to make the switch to the only home video format that supports three dimensions. However, despite the lemming like attitude by most directors to run to the latest gizmo, there are also those who aren’t quite ready to make the leap. At least not without looking first. Christopher Nolan has long given reasoned explanations behind his hesitancy to embrace 3D (it requires shooting digitally and he loves film; the dimness of the picture is also a sticking point) and it appears that J.J. Abrams isn’t quite ready to break out another pair of glasses. But he’s certainly feeling the pressure.
Speaking to Vulture, the director reveals that Paramount are already making overtures that the next “Star Trek” boldly go where no previous “Star Trek” film has gone before. Asked if the studio is considering 3D, Abrams replies they have adding, “I have nothing against 3-D in theory. But I’ve also never run to the movies because something’s in 3-D. [As for Trek], as soon as I read the script, if it says, ‘Somebody pushes a weapon toward the camera in a menacing way,’ and we think, ‘That’d be better in 3-D!’… I dunno.”
He goes on to elaborate that, like Nolan, there are limitations to the format that he’s not quite comfortable with as well as concerns about how dorky sequences made to go right in your face may end up looking. “I’m a big fan of whip pans, which is very hard to do in 3-D. You know, when I was in New York fifteen years ago, and I sort of had the flu, I remember turning the TV on. There were these kids in a very dark, kind of muddy movie that was on a local channel, talking about making out. Then you cut to them walking in the forest, and somebody had a paddleball, and they were doing it right to the camera. It was like this weird, experimental Fellini movie. I was like, ‘What the fuck is this movie?’ And it was ‘Friday the 13th Part 3‘ in 3-D — without sex, violence, or 3-D! It was genius.”
And while Abrams is on board to produce “Star Trek 2,” he’s still not signed on to direct. His explanation during press rounds for the Television Critics Association was that he’s waiting to see a script. “I guess the idea of not wanting to choose to direct a film, for which I’ve not read a script. It’s a tough decision to make without seeing any pages. That’s not to say that I don’t have all the faith in the world in the spectacular writers. Damon Lindelof, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are awesome. My hope is that they’ll write the script, it will be great and we can make a fun, exciting sequel to ‘Star Trek.’”
We presume a decision — and a script — will be arriving soon. “Star Trek 2” is already slated for a June 29, 2012 release and production is likely to begin this summer. But it seems there are still major questions to be answered in regards to who will direct and whether or not we’ll be paying a few extra bucks to have the Vulcan death grip right in our retinas. Our advice? Give those dudes at IMAX a call Abrams — the world of “Star Trek” begs for a huge canvas, not a plethora of asteroids whizzing by our faces.
