Coming soon from Hollywood

Avatar:

Earlier this month, James Cameron previewed the 3D video game based on his upcoming December 18 release, Avatar, and three screenshots were released. The sci-fi action-adventure stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Peter Mensah, Laz Alonso, Wes Studi, Stephen Lang and Matt Gerald.

Even though places like THR and IESB are saying that the audience at the Expo was asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, reports are nonetheless coming in from various different sources about the Avatar footage that was shown. And below we have provided a selection of quotes from them.

Coming Soon (scooper: ‘The Insider’)

'I’ve just returned from a preview screening of “Avatar”… and I’m still feeling the after effects of this jaw-dropping experience… Finally a director who doesn’t feel the need to stick it [3D] in the audience’s face with cheap tricks like pointing objects at the camera…

I thought–just like you guys–that I’ve seen it all with Gollum, or The Hulk, but Cameron has done it again. These creatures seem so real, that within minutes you forget you’re watching an enormous and very blue CGI character. Even the eyes are totally convincing. The characters have real personalities and a soul… The effects are in a league of their own. After some disappointing or even pointless 3-D movies, “Avatar” maybe the first movie where 3-D is properly utilized.'

MarketSaw

'You will NOT believe the detail… The world outside is amazing. It all lives, breathes and works… You will not believe the amount of leaves that look like someone created that jungle for real.

What is most important about this movie [is that] everything lives and breathes… There’s a shot of leaves somewhere which is so photorealistic you don’t want to think it’s CGI. You believe this world from the get-go. It’s there, you don’t need to believe it because you will experience it.'

Unique Cinema System (via Twitter)

'…Stunning, literally jawdropping. Amazing visuals unlike any before seen, with incredible detail… CGI was photorealistic, characters look really real. Believe the hype, this movie will be massive!'

Alice In Wonderland:

Walt Disney Pictures has released the first promotional photos from Tim Burton’s 3D re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland. Above you can see the first official photos of Johnny Depp as a freakish-looking Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen (”Off With Their Heads”), and Anne Hathaway as The White Queen, looking very pale. After the jump we’ve included newly confirmed details about the film’s plot (did you know its a kind of a sequel?) and new concept art that shows the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen) and more.

The film begins at a party where Alice, now 17, finds out that she is about to be proposed to in front of hundreds of snooty high society types. She makes a run for it, and of course, ends up following a white rabbit down a hole, back to Wonderland — a place where she visited a decade prior. The White Rabbit is convinced that he has the right girl but Alice doesn’t remember her past visit to Wonderland. The creatures of Wonderland are ready to revolt and are hoping/waiting for Alice to help them, but will she? Can she?

Other details revealed in the article include: The Red Queen has “a moat filled with bobbing noggins”, The White Queen is beautiful but eccentric, and floats around instead of walking, and that Depp employs an accent for the Hatter that producer Richard Zanuck can only describe as “indescribable”.