It must be difficult when a filmmaker like Gary Ross manages to shut the door on 3D for one of Lionsgate’s biggest new franchises, the Hunger Games series, by likening it to the exact kind of needless spectacle his film views as the villain. As such, Lionsgate can’t inflate their ticket sales without a needless IMAX “special release” that wound up getting extended beyond the point of specialness, which, for non-business reasons, Alec took a certain amount of umbrage towards. Now, Lionsgate has announced that director Francis Lawrence will be shooting parts of the sequel to Hunger Games, Catching Fire (or The Hunger Games: Catching Fire as proof that Hollywood doesn’t think you’re smart enough to realize it’s a sequel) in the ultra-huge IMAX 65mm format. Let’s hope they can buy a tripod for that massive camera, since the jerky shakycam work in Hunger Games gave me a massive headache and will be nigh-impossible to replicate with the IMAX camera.
Additionally, IMAX announced via their Twitter that Star Trek 2, which just wrapped last month, was partially shot in IMAX for an IMAX release, confirming rumors from late last year that it would be releasing in both IMAX and 3D.
Expect to see this a lot more as IMAX tech gets easier and less expensive to use. Filmmakers like Brad Bird and Christopher Nolan have shown how the IMAX format makes big, sweeping action scenes explode in ways 35mm just can’t compete with, when handled competently. I’d go so far as to say that, by 2015/2016, we’re going to be seeing a very large percentage of big budget blockbuster action movies with large set pieces shot in IMAX.
[Via THR, official IMAX Twitter]
