Getting the Word Out

My brother and I are both movie fiends and as such, we are pretty much up to date on a lot of the happenings in Hollywood. While my brother probably has more of an encyclopediac volume of knowledge on the subject, I like to think I'm not so bad when it comes to the movies. I can remember going to the movies as a kid and always hoping that we would arrive in time to find good seats and then see a bunch of good trailers. Not living in Hollywood, in fact living on the opposite coast, meant that back before the internet, you rarely got news about movies until they were 'in the can' and ready for distribution. For those in the know, 'in the can' is the term used to describe when a film is completed and put in the film can for distribution. I can remember not being aware of the latest Indiana Jones movie (back in 1984) until we first saw a TV commercial for it a few days before the movie came out. Later on we started hunting for information but back then it was hard to find.

But times have changed as they are wont to do and things are certainly different now than they were then and this can lead to some interesting situations in the movie world. Now most people I have spoken to enjoyed the latest James Bond movie, "Casino Royale" starring Daniel Craig. What a lot of people didn't realize is that there was tremendous backlash against Daniel Craig portraying Bond simply because he had blonde hair. Now I'm a big fan of James Bond and I was sure that the producers and director had chosen an appropriate actor to play the superspy having seen his previous work in movies like "Munich" and "The Road to Predition". Still, the backlash was significant enough to yield tension at the studio as to whether fans would go to see the film or not. Thankfully the average moviegoer wasn't as concerned about his hair colour as the unnecessarily dedicated movie fan but it just goes to show that thanks to the internet and the amount of information out there, a movie can be made or broken even before the trailer is released.

During the build up to "Casino Royale" there were so many rumors swirling around about how Daniel Craig couldn't drive manual transmission cars, or how he had been injured doing relatively simple stunt work. None of these rumors were true but it lent to an air of hesitation in most movie fans. Forget the fact that most people spreading these rumors can't drive manual transmission or even do half the stuff some actors do. Still, I think it may have ended up benefiting the movie since many people turned out to see if the movie was as bad as people were making it out to be or whether Daniel Craig was as terrible as people were predicting him to be. Thankfully both cases ended up being completely incorrect. Still, in order to help allay fears of this sort, movie producers and studios ensure that there is just enough info released on the movie to the internet to help keep people interested.

Take for example the latest Indiana Jones film, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". This movie has been in the works for a number of years and has gone through so many scripts that they could have had ten versions of the same sequel if they had wanted to. How do I know this? Because of the internet. So much information is available out there that producers and studios are taking great pains to safeguard their movies from rumors being leaked onto the internet. There is as much security around some movie sets and scripts these days that the Department of Homeland Security or the CIA would be hard pressed to come up with something more secure. And why? Because there is that desire to at least maintain some level of mystery with the coming of the latest movies. They want to make sure that the audience is interested but not completely give the story away before the time comes. It also helps studios refine the product so that the main people to contribute towards a movie's success, namely these same rabid fans, will be satisfied.