I’m not sure I can think of two more disparate names in Hollywood than 24-year-old pop musician Billie Eilish and 71-year-old director James Cameron, but throw all their Grammys and Oscars in a pile, and they probably would not fit on a floating door. But now the two have combined for what is looking to be a fantastic theatrical experiment, racking up top scores from critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.
The project is Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour Live in 3D, and the end of that may indicate how James Cameron is involved, also known as the only man making 3D movie-watching worthwhile in the last two decades, thanks to his out-of-this-world tech few can emulate. Now he’s applying it to a concert show. But he’s not even the sole director, as Billie has co-directed it with him.
As it stands, Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft has a stellar 93% Rotten Tomatoes score with over 50 reviews in. And then a 99% Rotten Tomatoes score from audiences as they show up to theaters over the course of this weekend. Cameron explained the idea behind the project to the New York Times, which was his idea, it turns out, after following Eilish’s concerts and career:
“Cameron’s goal was simple. “We were just going to basically be surveillance cameras,” he explained. “It’s not like one of those conceits where, ‘OK, I’m Martin Scorsese, and I’m going to start at the beginning of the Stones tour, and hit all these amazing behind-the-scenes moments.’ That wasn’t the gig,” he said. His film with Eilish “is not the story of the whole tour. It’s the story of the day-of.”
The film was shot across four concerts, using 17 different mobile cameras moving around the stage to capture the footage needed for the 3D version, including a cameraperson following her specifically with a 3D camera. Given the spread of the concerts, Eilish had to keep wearing the same outfit across shows for continuity.
This is certainly far from the first concert film ever shot, and obviously, there have been high-profile ones in the past (see the Scorsese Stones comment), but it’s certainly unique both because of the tech and the fact that this is a director who has directed three of the four highest-earning movies of all time. We’ll see how this one does in theaters, though it’s currently competing with The Devil Wears Prada and Mortal Kombat. Still, for Eilish fans, or Cameron fans, clearly it’s going to be a treat.
