Avatar star Sam Worthington stumbles into a fantasy adventure tonight that’s got a bad rap – and even director Louis Leterrier is batting it down.
Today on TV comes a fantasy film that put a decent damper on the 3D hype of the 2010s. We’re talking about Clash of the Titans (2010), which entertained with giant scorpions, massive octopuses, acting gods and Sam Worthington. However, the director later didn’t mince words when talking about the production.
This is what Clash of the Titans is all about
Combat of the Titans is based on the 1981 fantasy film of the same name, which adapted the Greek myth about Perseus (Sam Worthington), the son of the god Zeus (Liam Neeson) and a human princess. The young man who grew up among humans has to witness his family falling victim to the god of revenge, Hades (Ralph Fiennes). With nothing left to lose, Perseus agrees to overcome Hades before he disempowers Zeus and throws the earth into chaos. An adventure begins in which Perseus is confronted with his true origins.
The fantasy film was a great success and yet has a bad reputation
Combat of the Titans was Sam Worthington’s next big film after his starring role in xAvatar – Set Out for Pandora (2009) and grossed almost $500 million worldwide. However, the adventure failed with critics. Worse still, Clash of the Titans was widely associated in retrospect with its poor 3D conversion.
Avatar director Cameron had shot his film with the appropriate cameras and achieved high-quality spatial effects. Other productions wanted to jump on this hype, which is why 2D films like Alice in Wonderland and Clash of the Titans were subsequently converted to 3D. However, their effects were nowhere near the quality of Avatar, which Titans director Louis Leterrier later admitted. In 2013, he explained to the Huffington Post that the film was shot without a finished script and that the decision to go 3D was not his.
“It was famously rushed and famously terrible. It was absolutely terrible, the 3D. Nothing worked, it was just a gimmick to take money out of the viewers’ pockets. I’m a good guy and I put up with it, but it’s not my film. Clash of the Titans is not my film. And that’s also the reason why I didn’t make the sequel. “