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'Piranha 3D' Producer Hits Back After James Cameron Blasts Their Movie: [ send to a friend ]
"I worked on Piranha 2 for a few days and got fired off of it," Cameron said in a recent Vanity Fair interview. "I don't put it on my official filmography. So there's no sort of fond connection for me whatsoever." "In fact, I would go even farther and say that... I tend almost never to throw other films under the bus, but that is exactly an example of what we should not be doing in 3D. Because it just cheapens the medium and reminds you of the bad 3D horror films from the 70s and 80s, like 'Friday the 13th' 3D." "Cameron, who singles himself out to be a visionary of movie-making, seems to have a small vision regarding any motion pictures that are not his own," responds Canton in a lengthy statement. "It is amazing that in the movie-making process – which is certainly a team sport – that Cameron consistently celebrates himself out as though he is a team of one. His comments are ridiculous, self-serving and insulting to those of us who are not caught up in serving his ego and his rhetoric." "Jim, are you kidding or what? First of all, let's start by you accepting the fact that you were the original director of Piranha 2 and you were fired. Shame on you for thinking that genre movies and the real maestros like Roger Corman and his collaborators are any less auteur or impactful in the history of cinema than you." "Martin Scorcese made Boxcar Bertha at the beginning of his career. And Francis Ford Coppola made Dimentia 13 back in 1963. And those are just a few examples of the talented and successful filmmakers whose roots are in genre films. Who are you to impugn any genre film or its creators?" "The enjoyment and the immersion of an audience in a movie theatre and as audiences are experiencing with Pirnaha 3D now, comes from the originality and the vision of the filmmaker, and not just from the creation of the technology. You as much as anyone certainly knows that there are many pieces to the puzzle. Going to the movies still remains, arguably, amongst the best communal experiences that human beings can share." "My sense is that Mr. Cameron has never seen Piranha 3D…certainly not in a movie theatre with a real audience. Jim, we invite you to take that opportunity and experience the movie in a theatre full of fans – fans for whom this movie was always intended to entertain." "I believe Mr. Cameron did not see PIRANHA 3D either with any real audience or not at all. On opening weekend, I was in a Los Angeles theatre with a number of today's great film makers including JJ Abrams, who actually had nothing short of the fabulous, fun 3D experience that the movie provides." "What it comes down to, Jim, is – that like most things in life – size doesn't really matter. Not everyone has the advantage of having endless amounts of money to play in their sandbox and to take ten years using other people's money to make and market a film like you do. Why can't you just count your blessings?" "We know that PIRANHA 3D has not achieved a boxoffice that is on the level of many of Mr. Cameron's successes. To date, Piranha 3D has earned over $30 million around the globe with No. 1 openings in several countries." "Let's just keep this in mind Jim….you did not invent 3D. You were fortunate that others inspired you to take it further. The simple truth is that I had nothing but good things to say about Avatar and my own experience since I actually saw it and didn't damn someone else's talent publicly in order to disassociate myself from my origins in the business from which we are all very fortunate." "To be honest, I found the 3D in AVATAR to be inconsistent and while ground breaking in many respects, sometimes I thought it overwhelmed the storytelling. Technology aside, I wish AVATAR had been more original in its storytelling." "It is garbage to suggest that any film or any filmmaker who cannot afford to work to your standards should be dissuaded from following his or her craft by not making 3D movies or not making movies like District 9, for example, which probably cost the amount of Avatar's craft services budget, but totally rocked it in the movie theatre and in the marketplace." "Jim, there is a difference between Maestro which is a word that garners respect, and Dictator or Critic which are words better left for others who are not in our mutual boat or on our team. You are one of the best, it is reasonable to think that you should dig deeper and behave like it. Young directors should be inspired by you, not publicly castigated by your mean-spirited and flawed analysis."
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Producer Mark Canton has responded to James Cameron after the 'Avatar' director insulted 'Piranha 3D.'
