The Star eCentral: Movie Buzz
The Star eCentral: Movie Buzz |
| Posted: While they are no A-listers, Pacific Rim features some of the brighter stars in Hollywood, dedicated to their craft and all focused on making this movie a success. RINKO KIKUCHI as Mako Mori, the new pilot out for revenge "The armour that I wore as pilot in the Conn-pod (cockpit) was heavy. And then we had to wear a mechanical arm for the fight sequence. Guillermo (del Toro) made it really heavy so that the performance would look real. By the end of the shoot, I became a true Jaeger pilot." GUILLERMO DEL TORO, the visionary director of Pacific Rim "A good movie must have three things – plot, information and character. Now, to balance all three is difficult. The final screenplay for Pacific Rim was 135-pages long, which is 40 more minutes (from the final cut of the movie). So, when writing a script, you have to write in a way that there are modular things that you can move around. In my opinion, you write the movie in the editing room, really." CHARLIE HUNNAM as Raleigh Becket, a down-and-out pilot out to prove himself ... again "The process of acting in an environment that is virtual was a scary process initially. But when I got to work, I realised the interaction with human beings is most important. If you have got good actors showing up prepared, and ready to do the scenes, that's all you need as an actor. The green screen is of secondary importance." RON PERLMAN as Hannibal Chau, the flamboyant dealer selling Kaiju body parts in the Hong Kong black market "Things you long for as an actor are to be challenged and to be presented with different forms of humanity to explore. And every single time I have worked with (del Toro), he has asked for something new. He told me he wanted Hannibal to have a lot of flair, to be theatrical." IDRIS ELBA as Stacker Pentecost, the commander overseeing the Jaeger Programme "(My character) is a lifelong soldier and a natural-born leader. No matter how big the problem is, his attitude is, 'I'm going to find a way to fix this'. As a strategist and a soldier, his only job is to figure out how to survive and win." CHARLIE DAY as Dr Newton Geiszler, the biologist who both studies monsters and is a Kaiju groupie "I knew the studio wanted me to bring some comedy to this movie and my greatest fear was that they were going to fill the script with fart jokes. Guillermo (del Toro) is always pushing me to play it almost as straight as I could. The challenge was to never make it too funny that I looked out of place in this movie. But also, hopefully, not to be too straight that the audience is disappointed that they don't get to see me being funny." Related story: |
| Posted: Award-winning director Guillermo del Toro goes big, literally, with Pacific Rim. SOME three years ago, things were looking bleak for Guillermo del Toro. The acclaimed Mexican director was enlisted to direct the prequels to The Lord Of The Rings; he spent two years designing the world of Middle-earth as he envisioned it for The Hobbit movies. Then, he pulled out, stating delays as the main reason for bowing out. (Rumour has it that Peter Jackson, who was producing the films, was meddling too much.) Del Toro quickly moved on to another project he has been lobbying for years – At The Mountains Of Madness, adapted from the H.P. Lovecraft novella. Even with Tom Cruise and James Cameron onboard, as actor and producer respectively, the studio eventually dropped the project, with budget constraint cited as one of the reasons. "Mountains is the hardest experience I had to deal with in the 20 years of my career," sighs del Toro. "When the movie collapsed, I was crushed." But he didn't have much time to wallow in self-pity. The director moved on very quickly to the next project, Pacific Rim. Now, for a fanboy of Japanese anime and all things monsters and robots, this project was right up del Toro's alley. "When I read the screenplay (for Pacific Rim), I said, let's do it!" the 48-year-old director tells Star2 in an interview in San Francisco. So, when he got news that Mountains Of Madness had been dropped on a Friday (del Toro admitted to crying over the weekend), he started working on Pacific Rim the following Monday. In Pacific Rim, the world is at the brink of destruction, no thanks to legions of Kaiju (Japanese for giant beast), which have risen from the sea and are hell-bent on destroying the world. To battle these monstrous beasts, giant robots, called Jaegers, are built to go head-to-head with them. These Jaegers are controlled by two pilots who move in tandem with each other – physically and mentally. Their minds are in sync via a neural bridge called The Drift; so the more the pilots bond, the better the Jaeger works. When the frequency of attacks by the Kaiju increase and Jaegers fall one by one at the hands of the nasty beasts, governments of the world lose faith in mankind's warrior robots. One final push is needed to help save the world and it is down to a washed-up former pilot, Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam), and a newbie, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), to pair up to stop the apocalypse. The first order of the day for del Toro was designing the Jaegers and Kaiju. And boy, did he have fun with it! "We designed the Jaegers and Kaiju in my house. I have something like eight drawing tables in my house, so I would lock the artist inside the room and let them work and meet at lunch time to bounce ideas back and forth. I'm obsessive compulsive and everything in the movie has to go through me," del Toro shares. Hunnam, who has been to del Toro's house, can attest to the director's obsession with monsters. "First of all, let me tell you, his house is amazing; it's like something from The Addams Family, book cases would open up to rooms and he has monster figurines everywhere. So, when I was at his place to talk about this movie, the artists were there sketching and he showed me a sketch of a robot and said, 'You will be the pilot. You will be inside the head of this robot!' In 15 minutes, I said I was on board," remembers Hunnam. Hunnam signed on to star in Pacific Rim without even reading the script. The prospect of working with del Toro was enough for the actor. "There's a handful of directors, 10 maybe 15, who are truly on top of their game. In this generation of filmmakers, Guillermo is one of them and I think he is a true master of his craft. He just makes truly wonderful, brilliant, colourful movies that are rich and textured, and most importantly, he makes films with complete integrity," Hunnam, who stars in the TV series Sons Of Anarchy, says. Screenwriter Travis Beacham echoes Hunnam's sentiment: "(Del Toro) loves monster movies, so we were playing in his sandbox. He came at the project with a genuine passion for the material, which I think was vital to the soul of the movie." The love del Toro has for monsters was evident at both times Star2 met him during this junket. He doesn't only talk about Kaiju, he waxes lyrical about them. "It was a project that encompassed every single thing on my wish list, visually, atmospherically and emotionally," del Toro says. "In making this film, my craft, experience and rigour were those of a 48-year-old man, but my heart was that of an 11-year-old." To achieve the stunning effects in Pacific Rim, del Toro turned to the wizards at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). He gave them (Spanish artist) Goya's The Colossus artwork as visual reference and his keywords to ILM were: Theatrical and operatic. (If he saw an effect that didn't agree with him, del Toro would send it back to ILM, saying, "This is like a Saturday night with my wife; not that exciting."). And del Toro got what he ordered. Every raindrop and crashing wave were meticulously created to del Toro's specifications. "It was important to me that water becomes the third character in the movie (after the Kaiju and Jaeger)." And just because it is special effects-heavy, del Toro wasn't interested in making every shot "unique and cool". He reasons: "I wasn't making a car commercial!" So, del Toro told the director of photography, Guillermo Navarro (who also worked on Pan's Labyrinth, earning him an Oscar for Best Cinematography), that for the fight sequences between the Kaijus and Jaegers, he wanted angles from a helicopter or a boat; to make it look as though it was live footage. A lifelong fan of Ishiro Honda, the Japanese filmmaker who directed the original Godzilla movies, del Toro wanted to pay homage to him as well as all the monster movies he grew up watching and loving. "I wanted to make a movie by a fan, not a fan movie. So, there are certain scenes, like the Kaiju destroying the cities while the people are running, that are a nod to monster movies I love. But, I also want to show the audience things they haven't seen before, and you will see a lot of that here. So, yes, I'm honouring the tradition (of retro monster movies), but a lot of it is my own take on this tradition," del Toro explains. A renowned auteur, whose claim to international fame is the fantasy drama Pan's Labyrinth, del Toro has not put out a movie as a director in the last five years (instead, he produced hit movies such as Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss In Boots as well as the recent horror flick Mama). Pacific Rim is his first foray into the "blockbuster" arena. Budget allocated for this movie was roughly US$200mil (RM640mil). The price tag didn't scare him one bit. Going into this movie, the director didn't feel too stressed out at the thought of the size of the movie. "I don't make a movie hoping it will be nominated for the Oscars, or that I hope it will do well at the box-office. "What I think of is myself; I gotta do what I like doing because you are giving it three years of your life. Is Pacific Rim worth giving three years of my life to? My answer is absolutely yes." Pacific Rim opens in cinemas nationwide on July 11. Related story: |
| Tell-tale signs that a movie could be a flop Posted: landed in theatres recently with a thud. Blowing up much of the Beltway, it costs US$150mil (RM450mil) but the film only eked out a US$25.7mil (RM77.1mil) opening despite boasting the triple threat of Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx and This week saw the debut of The Lone Ranger, which rode into theatres on a flurry of bad reviews and damaging reports about a bursting budget and production snafus. Of course, like World War Z, another film that was plauged by trouble on the set stories, The Lone Ranger could overcome the bad buzz to be a solid box officer earner. It's just that not every film is so lucky. Just ask Will and Jaden Smith's whose father-son adventure After Earth crash landed with audiences and critics; or poor Taylor Kitsch, who had the ignominious distinction of starring in not one, but two back-to-back bombs with Battleship and John Carter. Nearly every preview for would-be blockbusters these days promises moviegoers a non-stop thrill ride guaranteed to leave them flattened, floored and gasping at the sheer wonder of all that CGI and star power. Look closer, however, and there are certain tell-tale signs that a studio knows it may have a turkey on its hands. Every studio wants a movie to be a hit. Here are some signals that it won't be: Critics can't review the film until after it opens Sometimes a film is so unsalvageable that studios won't even let critics get their talons into it until after a film debuts. So if your local paper carries a notice that such and such a film can't be reviewed because there were no advance screenings, cancel the babysitter and call off plans to hit the multiplex. That kind of treatment is reserved for movies that are so bad, studios know the reviews will only add fuel to the bad-word-of-mouth fire. Think of the much-panned Movie 43, or the Ashton Kutcher-Katherine Heigl dud Killers (pic below), or the Daniel Craig horror film Dream House, which was frightening for all the wrong reasons. None of those films got reviewed until after opening day. Get the drift? The ever-shifting release date When a studio plans to release a movie during blockbuster or awards season, only to change course and reschedule for, say, early spring or mid-fall, that usually signals big problems. It either means a movie isn't good enough to snag an Oscar or lacks what it takes to compete with the other popcorn movies. Either way, it's rarely an endorsement. Exceptions: The Great Gatsby which had many Hollywood watchers smelling a bomb when it was punted out of Oscar season and into this summer. Yes, critics hated it, but audiences embraced it to the tune of more than US$300mil (RM900mil) at the worldwide box office. A similar strategy reaped dividends for World War Z, which brought in the Lost team of Damon Lindelof and Drew Goddard after filming had wrapped to craft a new ending. The costly bet required a move from winter 2012 to the summer of 2013, but the filmmakers were rewarded with big box office takings worldwide and counting. Some things are worth the wait. It's green Green Hornet and Green Lantern both came out summer 2011, both cost a lot of money, and both bombed. Add to the list, 2010's Green Zone, a big-budget Iraq War action movie that discovered that – shock of shocks – audiences go to the movies to escape real world problems. Still don't see a pattern? Try 2003's Hulk and 2008's The Incredible Hulk. Green is great for the environment. At the box office, it's toxic. Exception: The Avengers, which did feature a big green monster but widely avoided the colour in its title. Eddie Murphy is in it Yeah, he was a comic genius – back in the time of Iran Contra and acid wash jeans. But too many dumb kiddie movies have made Eddie Murphy box office poison. With a resume stocked with flops like Meet Dave, A Thousand Words and, drum roll please, The Adventures Of Pluto Nash, it's a wonder the former-funnyman continues to get work. Shrek and Dreamgirls sure feel like a long time ago. Katherine Heigl is in it Poor Izzie. If only you'd never left Seattle Grace Hospital. That's because losing the medical scrubs has been nothing short of a disaster for the once-promising Heigl. Don't believe us? Why don't you rent Killers or One For The Money ... and don't worry, there won't be a wait on Netflix for either one. It's a "Big Budget Passion Project" Throwing a lot of money at a talented auteur or actor usually results in one of two outcomes: the studio doesn't trust its creative team enough and over-interferes, creating an unsalvageable mishmash of the filmmaker's unique vision and the studio's desperate desire to make it appeal to the widest possible audience (see: The Fountain), or a creative genius has too much clout and gets all the cash and freedom to do what they want (see: Cloud Atlas, Battlefield Earth and everything M. Night Shyamalan has done since 2006). Exception: Anything James Cameron touches. Just write the cheque Hollywood and leave him in peace. Poster or trailer proclaims "From the producer of..." Ask yourself: do you even know what a producer does? They might as well say from the craft services team behind Twilight or the grip who helped light The Phantom Menace. — Reuters |
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