Warner Bros. has forced Guillermo del Toro to do a 3D conversion of Pacific Rim, which comes out next summer. A 3D conversion of the film was not del Toro’s original intention. First Showing cited the following excerpt from Collider’s interview with del Toro in July:
I didn’t want to make the movie 3D because when you have things that big… the thing that happens naturally, you’re looking at two buildings lets say at 300 feet [away], if you move there is no parallax. They’re so big that, in 3D, you barely notice anything no matter how fast you move. To force the 3D effects for robots and monsters that are supposed to be big you are making their [perspective] miniaturized, making them human scale.
The box office is the reason for all this, particularly overseas. Our own Alex Katz noted that in China, American films can only be shown in the country if they are in IMAX or 3D. So It makes sense from a business perspective even though the 3D might look crummy.
A lot of us here are looking forward to Pacific Rim, which del Toro described as a “very beautiful poem to giant monsters.” The recent images from Pacific Rim that have trickled in look cool, and I can’t wait for the first glimpse of the robots and monsters in action. I’ll be seeing it in 2D next summer like del Toro intended, though full disclosure, I hate watching movies in 3D.
[Variety and Collider via First Showing]
