Aliens and Terminator 2 could be Cameron's next 3D conversions

While doing press for the re-release of 'Titanic' in 3D, long-time James Cameron collaborator, Jon Landau, revealed that 'Aliens' and 'Terminator 2' could be next for a 3D conversion.

[Quiz:Can you guess the movie haircut?]

He said: “When we're done with the next two Avatars it's something we would go back and entertain. Whether it be 'Terminator 2', whether it be 'Aliens', I think Jim [James Cameron] would like to do that."

Interestingly, he added: "I think you can also look at other filmmakers, I know Peter Jackson is interested in possibly going back to the 'Lord of the Rings', I’ve heard that Steven Spielberg is interested in maybe going back on the first 'Jurassic Park'. What is important is the filmmaker involvement, what we've done here is create our archival master. What we release this April, for history, is the master for 'Titanic'.”

The producer was on hand to introduce eight scenes from the Oscar-winning movie as well as give us an insight into the conversion process.

When 'Titanic' was originally released it smashed box-office records and became the highest grossing film of all-time, a position it held until Cameron's next film 'Avatar' was released. With this in mind, Landau told us that they aren't going to tinker with the story itself in anyway.

“The movie is going to be presented exactly as it was - from a cut standpoint – back in  1997. We had to handcuff ourselves, we were tempted at times but its about experiencing it as we intended it to be. It's about what works for an audience.”

So why bother making a 3D version, and what makes this conversion better than others?

“We're asking the audience to suspend their disbelief, now if you do it properly in 3D, it's one less thing for the audience to think about. Other movies have come out with conversions taking six weeks at the end of production. We took sixty weeks, and that doesn't include the year-and-a-half of testing we did. It's not a technical process, it's a creative one that uses technical tools.”

The clips we saw proved that this was not just another rushed 3D project. The ship itself looks superb and the images were sharp, especially in the indoor scenes. It looks like 'Titanic 3D' could be the first of many revisited classics. Oh and 'Phantom Menace' 3D as well, which is scheduled soon.

'Titanic 3D' will be released in April 2012.