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Hot? Red Band Trailer: ‘Piranha 3DD’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday March 19, 2012 @ 1:31pm PDTTags: James Cameron, Mark Canton, Piranha 3DD
Mike Fleming

Dimension Films has released a Red Band trailer for Piranha 3DD, the sequel to the silly 2010 film that was pointedly trashed by James Cameron when he was discussing the future potential of 3D films. That drew an aggressive response from the film’s producer Mark Canton, who reminded that Cameron directed Piranha 2 for Roger Corman early in his career and got fired. Based on what I’ve observed below in this new trailer, I can’t imagine that Cameron will be a fan of the sequel or that Canton will be defending it that hard. It looks like Girls Gone Wild with murderous prehistoric piranha, and David Hasselhoff. Here’s a little red meat in the water for Deadline’s comments section.

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Mark Canton Bites Back At Jim Cameron For Filleting ‘Piranha 3D’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Tuesday August 31, 2010 @ 2:13pm PDTTags: 3D, 3D Technology, James Cameron, James Cameron 3D, Mark Canton, Piranha 3D
Mike Fleming

A war of words broke out today between Avatar director James Cameron and producer Mark Canton over whether Weinstein Co/Dimension’s current version of Piranha 3D is a crapfest. (Cameron was hired and then fired as the director of the original 1981 Piranha Part 2). Here’s what they are saying:

Cameron told VanityFair.com while publicizing his Avatar re-release: “I tend almost never to throw other films under the bus, but [Piranha 3D] is exactly an example of what we should not be doing in 3D. Because it just cheapens the medium and reminds you of the bad 3D horror films from the ’70s and ’80s, like Friday The 13th 3D. When movies got to the bottom of the barrel of their creativity and at the last gasp of their financial lifespan, they did a 3-D version to get the last few drops of blood out of the turnip. And that’s now what’s happening now with 3D. It is a renaissance. Right now the biggest and best films are being made in 3D. Martin Scorsese is making a film in 3D [Hugo Cabret]. Disney’s biggest film of the year – Tron: Legacy — is coming out in 3D. So it’s a whole new ballgame.”

Canton issued this rebuttal via Dimension’s PR department: “As a producer in the entertainment industry, Jim Cameron’s comments on VanityFair.com are very disappointing to me and the team that made Piranha 3D.  Mr. Cameron, who singles himself out to be a visionary of movie-making, seems to have a small vision regarding any motion pictures that are not his own.  It is amazing that in the movie-making process – which is certainly a team sport – that Cameron consistently celebrates himself out as though he is a team of one.  His comments are ridiculous, self-serving and insulting to those of us who are not caught up in serving his ego and his rhetoric.

Jim, are you kidding or what? First of all, let’s start by you accepting the fact that you were the original director of Piranha 2 and you were fired.  Shame on you for thinking that genre movies and the real maestros like Roger Corman and his collaborators are any less auteur or impactful in the history of cinema than you. Martin Scorcese made Boxcar Bertha at the beginning of his career.  And Francis Ford Coppola made Dimentia 13 back in 1963.  And those are just a few examples of the  talented and successful filmmakers whose roots are in genre films.  Who are you to impugn any genre film or its creators?

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Dimension’s ‘Piranha 3D’ To Be Sequelized

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday August 23, 2010 @ 2:23pm PDTTags: Alexandre Aja, Dimension Films, Mark Canton, Piranha 3D, Piranha 3D Sequel
Mike Fleming

Dimension Films has put toothy fish back on the menu.  Inexplicably, a sequel’s coming for Piranha 3D, after it only grossed $10 million opening weekend. The Alexandre Aja-directed film was produced by Mark Canton. Whoever didn’t end up eaten is … Read More »

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