James Cameron wants 3D in the living room and practically everywhere else

Dec. 23, 2009 7:57 AM PT

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James Cameron‘s ‘Avatar’ was the catalyst for numerous movie theaters around the world to finally install 3D technology. The director foresees the same scramble happening in the home, leading up to the Blu-ray release of the movie next year, and moving into the PC.

Despite the Blu-ray spec being finalized just last week, Cameron says he’s ready to sit down on his couch, throw on the goofy glasses and watch some eye-popping films. Doesn’t this technology need more time to incubate before we invite it into our living rooms?

‘It’s not too early. I think it’s going to be great,’ Cameron said in an interview with G4’s ‘Attack of the Show’ (video embedded below). ‘Everybody’s going to be scrambling around for 3D content. We can’t make these big, blockbuster movies fast enough.’

Cameron doesn’t expect ‘Avatar’ to be the main driver of the trend, as it was in theaters. Well, not the movie, anyway.

‘I think as it comes into the home initially, it’s going to be sports, and I think it could be gaming,’ Cameron said. ‘The ‘Avatar’ game is the first stereoscopic, 3D console game.’

The NFL was testing 3D broadcasts a year ago. PC games have been doing it for at least a decade -- not very well, for the most part.

‘The ‘Avatar’ game is a kick in 3D,’ Cameron said. ‘I just can’t imagine anybody who’s a serious gamer not wanting to get into the world of their game in a much more immersive way.’

Cameron’s biographer is practically convinced that he can see the future. So, Hollywood’s Nostradamus has some more predictions to rattle off.

‘Pretty soon, it’s going to be just everything,’ he said. ‘I think it’s quickly going to get adopted down to smaller devices. It works beautifully on a laptop because... [the laptop] is a single-user environment.’

‘You’ve got to orient yourself to it so you don’t have to wear the glasses,’ he continued. ‘Well, that’s called a laptop last time I checked.’

‘The smaller the display area, the more having z-depth to kind of sort and stack stuff behind stuff, windows behind windows, will actually kind of make some sense,’ he said.

Of course, it could get annoying having to recalibrate your position to the software every time you adjust how you’re sitting with the computer. But we can imagine the huge benefits of being able to see our iTunes window peeking from behind the browser. We can imagine it because Cameron shows us some of that conceptual computer technology in ‘Avatar.’

‘It’s going to come blowing in pretty fast here over the next couple of years,’ Cameron said.

It sounds a little far-fetched for such a short timeframe. But so did ‘Avatar’ a year ago when commentators speculated that the most expensive movie of all time might get lost in space.

-- Mark Milian

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