Why pay upwards of 75 bucks to see Katy Perry or Metallica in concert just to be covered in faux whipped cream (it’s soap, people!) or urine (it happened), when you can get the same experience, blood-, sweat-, and happy-tear-free in a movie theater? Okay, okay, don’t answer that question; it was a rhetorical device to lead into the news that both the blue-haired faux-teen and the quintessential headbanging quartet are moving ahead with their 3D movies.
Metallica announced their movie on their website last night (per Billboard) and named Predators auteur Nimród Antal as their director, but it’s probably a safe (albeit gloomy) bet that the Metallica 3D movie will not feature this guy (according to the band’s post, his work on the well-received Hungarian film Kontroll is what actually sold them). The Metallica film will be produced by Charlotte Huggins, whose most famous work includes both regrettably lucrative Journey to the Center of the Earth reboots.
On the other hand, Perry officially spilled the beans on her film last night via Twitter (per Entertainment Weekly), after reports of talks with Paramount surfaced at the end of January. Perry already has a little bit of 3D experience, having worked on last year’s at-best-disappointing Smurfs reboot. Fewer details are known about her movie; the only info out there at the moment is that it’s called Katy Perry: Part of Me and that it’s (probably) a concert flick.
While Metallica’s won’t see the inside of a theater until next year (what with Orion fest to worry about, they won’t have time to start filming until August), Part of Me is slated for release this summer. It’s probably a good time to point out that Justin Bieber’s 3D movie, Never Say Never, made $73 million in the U.S. alone, while Michael Jackson’s 3D This is It made a mind-blowing $261.2 million. Both of those were released during non-prime movie release months (February and October, respectively), too. But 3D film aren’t always a slam-dunk (see Brothers, Jonas).
Metallica recently talked to SPIN about doing whatever they want, in whatever non-traditional way they want, with their newfound freedom from Warner Music Group, who released their last record in 2008. Katy Perry, in a shocking twist, did not, but onetime SPIN editor Ellen Carpenter wrote about how much she hates the bubblegum princess back in 2008, way before the insane chart performance of Teenage Dream, and that’s definitely worth a read.
