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Hollywood Reporter: Will Silence Be Golden for Spielberg, Malick?
Besides their weighty historic subject matter, Universal Pictures' "Munich" and New Line Cinema's "The New World" have something else in common: Their respective directors, Steven Spielberg and Terrence Malick, aren't chasing after press.
This is unheard of in this media age of overhype. For his part, Spielberg is the most famous movie director in the world. He's a star whose name above the title is such an entertainment guarantee that it always puts butts in seats. "Only Steven Spielberg could get away with this," one studio marketing executive says. "Only his name as a director means anything. He's not Terrence Malick, who will have a visibility problem."
After the media circus that surrounded his summer tentpole "The War of the Worlds," starring Tom Cruise, Spielberg is avoiding advance press on the dead-serious political thriller "Munich," which is about a Mossad team's hunt for the Palestinian terrorists behind the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. According to his spokesman, Marvin Levy, the director wants word-of-mouth and reviews and not appearances on Jay Leno to drive audiences to the movie, which opens Dec. 23 in Los Angeles and New York and breaks nationwide Jan. 6. Says Levy: "It's whatever is on that screen. That's what it's about."
While Spielberg has willingly promoted movies that he felt needed his help -- such as "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence," "Minority Report" and "Saving Private Ryan" -- because "Munich" is about a well-known historic subject, Spielberg wants to take the old-fashioned route and let the movie speak for itself. "Sometimes silence speaks louder than everyone else," DreamWorks marketing chief Terry Press says. "There's so much blather in the world that sometimes quiet makes an impression."
Starting Monday, Universal, which co-produced the project with DreamWorks, will unspool a series of screenings for press and a wide swath of opinionmakers worldwide. "Steven hasn't committed to any Q&As," Levy says, "and no press junket." What Spielberg did do is talk to Time magazine for a possible cover story which could run as early as Monday. "We'd be crazy not to," Levy admits.
There will be some industry screenings but no flashy premiere. The film's star Eric Bana ("Troy") has done some advance interviews, and "other people will be doing interviews after the movie has been shown," Levy says.
Clearly, the marketing team behind "Munich" is not only expecting but also counting on controversy over the film's hot-potato topic -- Middle Eastern terrorism. Editorial coverage off the entertainment pages is a great way to build interest in a movie. "It's the Holy Grail when a movie goes beyond the entertainment world," Press says. In 2003, for example, "The Day After Tomorrow" got a serious boxoffice boost from numerous nonentertainment stories about global warming.
To that end, Universal has hired Sitrick PR's Allan Mayer and Washington foreign policy insiders Mike McCurry and Dennis Ross. "This subject matter will be popping up all over," Levy says. "While this movie deals with this 1972 incident and its aftermath, the overriding theme is relevant to the way things are going today, and not just the Middle East. This is a film people will have opinions about. Everyone will bring their own feelings, knowledge and sensitivities. Steven didn't want audiences to have preconceptions. He wants them to figure it out for themselves as much as possible."
With a platform release, "Munich" and "The New World" don't have to open like big-event movies in thousands of theaters. They have the luxury of building buzz through reviews and 10-best lists. "They're in for the long run as opposed to a quick hit," one rival studio marketing executive says. "They'll be fueled by the Golden Globes and year-end attention. This is very much an Academy play to capture voters (and) build momentum to get through Academy season. Their success doesn't need to be monumental. But with the long run, you have to have fantastic playability and word-of-mouth, like 'Chicago' or 'Shakespeare in Love.' You have to catch a wave."
If "Munich" is a huge success, there is one side benefit. It will lend Spielberg and his DreamWorks partners some much-needed leverage in their ongoing talks about selling their company to NBC Universal -- which are at an impasse, according to sources close to the negotiations, over the fine points of Spielberg's obligations under the new deal.
New Line Cinema also is facing a marketing challenge with its Dec. 25 opener, "The New World" (which goes wide Jan. 13). In that case, Texas-based writer-director Malick -- whose most recent film, the World War II drama "The Thin Red Line," earned five Oscar nominations -- is known to be reclusive, hates to have his picture taken and refuses to talk to the press on the grounds that "he's not any different from anyone else who worked on the film," New Line Cinema marketing president Russell Schwartz says.
Luckily, this great-looking epic is about a well-known piece of Americana, the founding of Jamestown in 1607 and the relationship between American Indian princess Pocahontas (played by newcomer Q'orianka Kilcher) and British explorer John Smith (Colin Farrell). With no filmmaker available for interviews, New Line will rely on producer Sarah Green ("State and Main," "Frida") as well as the film's two stars, Farrell and Christian Bale, who plays a tobacco magnate who marries Pocahontas.
The studio also will focus on turning Kilcher, 15, into a star, much the way Newmarket Films did with "Whale Rider's" teen lead, Keisha Castle-Hughes, who landed an Oscar nomination. "Q'orianka is our hook," Schwartz says, to selling the film's central love story to women. New Line is banking on the film earning strong critical response, not only because of Malick's singular cinematic vision but also because "it's so unlike anything else," he says.
That's for sure. Whatever anyone thinks about this movie, it is unexpected, even avant garde. "Terry doesn't spoon-feed anyone. He doesn't say, 'Here's what to think,' " producer Green says. "He lets you make those choices."
"The New World" began to take shape four years ago when Sony Pictures Classics co-president Michael Barker recommended Green to Malick, who called her out of the blue. The two got to know each other, and she responded enthusiastically to the idea of his going forward with his script for "The New World," which had been sitting on the shelf for some 25 years. "There are so many parallels going on today," Green says, "with cultures seeing foreignness in each other instead of sameness. It's also the journey of a young woman learning about love."
But even with Colin Farrell attached, it was tough to raise money for the historic epic. Former 20th Century Fox chairman Bill Mechanic, who backed the $52 million "Red Line," tried to bankroll "The New World" at his new production company Pandemonium, but "everyone was looking for an automatic blockbuster," he says. Finally, New Line chief Robert Shaye picked up global distribution rights for the independently financed $40 million picture, which is executive produced by New Line executives Mark Ordesky and Rolf Mittweg.
According to Green, Malick shot about a million feet of film (for the most part, without artificial light and using hand-held cameras) on location in Virginia and London over 17 weeks (the norm would be 300,000 feet over 10 weeks), allowing for many impulsive changes of scenery and dialogue. Like "Munich," there was no press on set.
Malick then retired with four editors into the cutting room for a year, whittling the movie down to 2 hours and 40 minutes, deleting reams of dialogue -- the movie is often silent -- and adding interior voice-overs for the three leads that were not in the original script. (Malick also used voice-overs in "The Thin Red Line.") Everything in the movie is real, including the three ships, except for one CG-enhanced bird -- an extinct Carolina parakeet.
Green insists that they were close to making the original November release date but were happy to be given more time by New Line to polish the final cut, partly because Farrell was still filming "Miami Vice" and was unavailable to do press. Now the stars will all participate in press junkets; the film will have an American Film Institute benefit premiere Dec. 15 in Los Angeles as well as special showings at Washington's Smithsonian Institution and the Museum of the American Indian in New York. And then the critics are expected to weigh in. Even with strong critical backing and five Oscar noms, "The Thin Red Line" did not make its money back theatrically. For "The New World," silence may not be golden.
By Anne Thompson, Hollywood Reporter
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