James Cameron Q & A Podcast from Aliens / The Abyss Event!

Michael here. I had almost given up on getting into Friday night's Aliens / The Abyss (in 70 mm) double feature with James Cameron at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. The event had sold out over five weeks ago. When I arrived at the theater, I was among a bunch of people looking for someone to sell them a ticket.

Anyway, I got lucky and had the awesome experience of seeing Aliens and The Abyss projected in startlingly vivid 70 mm. Between movies, Cameron talked with the audience about his past films, Avatar, 3D, The Dark Knight, the Simulcam and more.

Listen below for 43 minutes of Q & A with James Cameron!

A few highlights:

1. Cameron said we would see our first glimpse of Avatar "very soon." His tone of voice seemed to be hinting that we would, in fact, be seeing something very soon.

2. The 2D and 3D versions of Avatar will have different aspect ratios. The 3D version will be the full 16 x 9 ratio in which the movie was shot (Cameron explains how the extra screen height benefits 3D). A 2D cinemascope ratio version will be extracted from this 16 x 9 footage for 2D theatrical exhibition and 3D exhibition on screens which can't handle 16 x 9.

3. On Avatar: "It's great to be back in the saddle making a movie- and making a movie that I know - win, lose, or draw, whether it's a good film or not, I know there's going to be images in this film we're making right now that are going to Blow. People. Away...They'll be like, 'what the f#ck?"...cause we say that when we see the shots coming back from WETA Digital. They sent us a shot last week, and I said, 'this is ridiculous!' So, I don't know if it's gonna add up to be a great film, but I already feel proud that there's some cool stuff in it."