James Cameron Blasts Peter Berg's Battleship Adaptation
Posted 01.10.11 by BrentJS
Anyone who knows anything about James Cameron knows the acclaimed director of two of the biggest movies of all time, Titanic and Avatar, is anything but shy about his opinions when it comes to the craft he has mastered. Cameron has been highly critical of the 3-D conversion process—versus shooting a movie in 3-D the way Avatar was—and targeted last year's Piranha 3-D as an example of what is wrong with the process, saying that "it just cheapens the medium."
In his latest attack on the movie industry, Cameron targeted the lack of original ideas in Hollywood, setting his sites on director Peter Berg's Battleship, a live-action adaptation of the Milton-Bradley board game, in an interview with German site Spiegel (as translated by WorstPreviews).
We have a story crisis. Now they want to make the Battleship game into a film. This is pure desperation. Everyone in Hollywood knows how important it is that a film is a brand before it hit theaters. If a brand has been around, Harry Potter for example, or Spider-Man, you are light years ahead. And there lies the problem. Because unfortunately these franchises are become more ridiculous. Battleship. This degrades the cinema.
Considering the glut of sequels, prequels and remakes coming out of Hollywood today, there's really no arguing with Cameron on this point. Of course, Cameron himself has two sequels planned for his next two directorial efforts, Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 (working titles).
In defense of Battleship, the movie seems to be based on the board game in name only. Though the script written by Jon and Erich Hoeber (Whiteout), with revisions by Brian Koppelman and David Levien (Rounders), is still tightly under wraps, the plot is said to involve an international naval fleet defending the earth from an alien invasion. The cast includes Liam Neeson, Alexander Skarsgard, Taylor Kitsch and pop singer Rihanna.
Next Showing: Battlehship opens May 18, 2012