Director Jonathan Liebesman Is Going To Post-Convert WRATH OF THE TITANS Into 3D

Post-conversion 3D is a constant source of debate amongst movie fans. Most agree that it represents the greediest side of the movie industry, a side that consists of money-hungry studios who want to convert a decidedly non-3D movie into 3D in order to milk a few extra bucks from moviegoers. And, nine times out of ten, the movies that are post-converted are movies that were never filmed for the format.

A perfect example of this would be CLASH OF THE TITANS. This is a flick that was shot in 2D with the intention of being shown in 2D. Had perhaps the director shot the movie with the intention of converting it to 3D (meaning that he would have made the film brighter to suit the format, added a few 3D flourishes into it and basically filmed it as if he was filming in 3D) it might have worked. But because it wasn’t shot with the intention of converting it to 3D, the process didn’t take and it ruined what it an okay movie.

Hell, to be more precise, the post-conversion 3D job done on CLASH was so bad that I opted to NOT review the movie because I felt that the entire picture had been undone by the format. I just couldn’t take a movie seriously that looked like a pop-up book run amok.

(Sidenote: I’ve seen CLASH minus 3D since and I think it’s a damn fine b-movie. Definitely not a great film, but it is definitely entertaining and works as a perfect Saturday afternoon filler movie. And, strangely enough, I've heard that CLASH looks better in 3D than it did at the theater because Warner redid the post-conversion for the Blu-Ray release. Can't confirm that, but that's what I've heard.)

Anyways, post-conversion 3D has come a good ways since then (which is funny to think about since this was just a year ago). Movies like THE GREEN HORNET and PIRANHA 3D have proved that filming a movie in 2D and converting it in post to 3D can actually work, while stuff like MY SOUL TO TAKE proves that the 3D hackjob is still possible.

Interestingly enough, you’d think Warner would avoid post-conversion 3D for the their upcoming CLASH sequel WRATH OF THE TITANS considering how poor the original job was. But no, they haven’t learned and director Jonathan Liebesman (BATTLE: LOS ANGELES) is heading up the charge to repeat the same mistakes the original made.

Liebesman had this to say to Cinematical:

The big question was to shoot native 3D or not. I tested a lot of digital cameras, and quite frankly, because I’m going for a sort of much grittier, grounded look in Clash 2, the look I want is almost Gladiator with fantastical creatures in it, I found that the characteristics of film were more what I was going for.

I didn’t want to convert, but Warner Brothers showed me how far conversion’s come. You’ve got Chris Nolan doing Inception, converting the DVD, you’ve got Harry Potter being converted, Star Wars being converted, so the conversion process has improved dramatically in the past two years.

I guess this is an okay announcement considering he’ll be shooting the flick with 3D in mind, but I just don’t get why they don’t film the movie in 3D. The amount of money spent both ways is probably around the same amount, but the quality of the 3D is where the real reward lies. But, I guess were talking about Warner here and they are a big company only interested in making money. Yay.

Incidentally, what is this about INCEPTION and HARRY POTTER being converted to 3D? I know that HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1 was meant to be post-converted at one point but Warner cancelled it. Have they reconsidered it for the second half of the finale? Or is this meant to be a 3D conversion for the home market?

As for INCEPTION, I could’ve swore I’ve read that Christopher Nolan is not a fan of the whole post-conversion process. Is Liebesman lying or is Warner converting INCEPTION on their own and he’s simply misinformed?

[via /film and Cinematical]