James Cameron Teases The Abyss Finally Getting Hi-Def Transfer

Filmmaker James Cameron has delivered audiences a number of ambitious and compelling films over the years, a number of which have been revisited and remastered for impressive home-video releases, but one title that many fans think has gone overlooked is his 1989 film The Abyss. After years of fans clamoring for a hi-def release, either on 4K Ultra HD or Blu-ray, it sounds as though that wish may finally be granted, as Cameron himself confirmed he oversaw an HD transfer of the film earlier this year. When, where, and how the film will be released is yet to be confirmed, but his comments imply it’s only a matter of time before The Abyss gets the remastered release it deserves.

“We finished the transfer and I wanted to do it myself because Mikael [Salomon] did such a beautiful job with the cinematography on that film. It is truly, truly gorgeous cinematography,” Cameron shared with Space.com. “That was before I started to assert myself in terms of lighting and asking the cinematographer to do certain things. I’d compose with the camera and choose the lenses, but I left the lighting to him. He did a remarkable job on that movie that I appreciate better now than I did even as we were making it.”

He continued, “I’d also like to point out that he took one look at the first day’s dailies of the underwater lighting and he went out and learned to scuba dive. He came in the following Monday morning, the worst diver in the world, but he reinvented underwater lighting. He went for indirect lighting and he got everybody doing things that were not just outside their comfort zone, they’d never even thought of it. Suddenly the underwater shots start to live up to the surface photography.”

The film focuses on the crew of a submarine that crashes unexpectedly, with the government sending in Navy SEALS to assist them, resulting in the discovery that aquatic life might not be the only thing they are encountering in the depths of the ocean.

Despite not getting a Blu-ray release for all these years, the film has occasionally appeared on streaming services, though oftentimes with incorrect aspect ratios, which only added to the frustrations of the film never getting a hi-def upgrade.

“So I just recently finished the high-def transfer a couple of months ago so presumably there’ll be Blu-rays and it will stream with a proper transfer from now on,” the filmmaker pointed out. “I appreciate what you said about the film. It didn’t make much money in its day, but it does seem to be well-liked over time. The designers were basically Ron Cobb on the one hand, and Steve Burg on the other, who was lead designer of the NTIs, the non-terrestrial intelligence, the look of their city and bodies and faces. Steve was a guy that I worked with on Terminator 2 after that. He was quite young at the time and fairly new to design.”

Stay tuned for details on the HD release of The Abyss.

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