Hollywood blitz PRESIDENT BUSH doesn't know what he's missing. The nation's leader is unable to attend tomorrow night's world premiere of "Pearl Harbor" at the famed naval base, but little apparently is getting in the way of the other 1,500 invited guests -- celebrities, filmmakers, military dignitaries, Pearl Harbor bombing survivors, and a few dozen Hawaii residents -- from attending an unprecedented motion picture event, said Dick Cook, chairman of Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group.
The Disney Co. hosts a
premiere party of
epic proportionsSEE ALSO: Stars meet the press
Tim Ryan &
Gregg K. Kakasako
Star-Bulletin"This is Disney's most anticipated movie ever, hands down," Cook said.
And a movie that almost didn't get made. Director Michael Bay by his own count quit four times, the last over budget disagreements just a few weeks before filming was to begin.
"Jerry kept telling me we had to cut more money and I didn't think I could do it," Bay said, referring to producer Jerry Bruckheimer. "I was pretty fed up and just wanted the studio to get going on the project."
Bay said the original budget for the three-hour epic was "huge," at reportedly $180 million, which was then cut to $145 million, and finally $135 million with a reserve of $5 million if the production ran into problems, Bay said. "Pearl Harbor" ended up costing $140 million, Bruckheimer said.Pre-production in Hawaii took several months, followed by six weeks of filming last April and May.
And the spending isn't over. Tomorrow's seven-hour-plus premiere will cost about $5 million to stage.
The nuclear aircraft carrier USS Stennis, minus its fighter planes and most of its 6,000 crew, arrived from San Diego on Tuesday to be the stage for the world premiere. Its 4.5-acre deck -- the length of three football fields --has been transformed into the Navy's most prominent entertainment venue since the USS Missouri was featured in a bawdy Cher music video.
The Stennis, which also starred in the first three episodes of the CBS TV series "JAG," in 1999, will become a floating theater for the 2,000-plus guests. Disney also made a one-of-a-kind print designed just for the outdoor screening on a 100-foot-wide screen.
"It will be the best presentation of any film ever seen on any screen around the world," said Cook, whom Bruckheimer credited with convincing the Navy to allow use of the Stennis.
Cook earlier this year showed a rough cut of "Pearl Harbor" to several Navy honchos in Bay's office. "When the lights went up there were tears in their eyes" and the deal was pretty much sealed, Bruckheimer said.
Disney construction crews and as many as 90 members of the local IATSE unit have been building the "theater," with its stadium seating, since Wednesday. Disney placed a video camera above the flight deck to record the construction and that will be part of a special DVD edition of "Pearl Harbor."
Disney also is turning the Stennis' hangar deck into a 1940s USO club where a band will play the music of the pre-Pearl Harbor era for a reception following the premiere. On the flight deck will be a P-40 fighter painted like the one flown by Col. Skeets Gallagher, father of current Stennis skipper Capt. Dick Gallagher. The elder Gallagher was stationed at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Disney has gone so far as to have Col. Gallagher's name painted on the plane's canopy.
Also on display will be an F-18 Super Hornet -- the Navy's newest tactical fighter which will replace the F-14 Tomcats -- and a B-25 Mitchell bomber which was used in Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle's 1942 raid over Tokyo. Both the P-40 and B-25 -- museum pieces kept at a museum in Chino, Calif. -- were flown to San Diego's North Island, then placed aboard the Stennis for the Hawaii trip. Disney was required by the Navy to buy $20 million of insurance for the move.
The 1,092-foot Stennis is moored at Pearl Harbor's Hotel Pier across the channel from where the USS Arizona has rested since it was sunk near Ford Island by Japanese fighter planes. It's also within sight of the USS Missouri battleship.
Local guests will mix with the film's stars Kate Beckinsale, Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Alec Baldwin, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Dan Aykroyd; Disney chairman Michael Eisner; and country singer Faith Hill, who sings the movie's theme song "There You'll Be."
Invitees will start walking down an 850-foot, 6-foot-wide red carpet between 5 and 7 p.m. to board the Stennis. Some fans will be allowed to sit in bleachers along the red carpet to see their favorite stars. Non-military guests are instructed to wear "aloha crisp" attire. On the Stennis, rubber-soled shoes or sneakers are recommended; narrow or high heels are out, putting a crimp on Hollywood style.
Opening ceremonies may include the U.S. Navy doing a flyby salute to those who served and died at Pearl Harbor. The Honolulu Symphony Pops Orchestra will play before and after the film. Symphony officials declined saying what the fee is for the night's festivities, citing a confidentiality contract, but wouldn't deny some reports that it's as much as $100,000.
The Pops performance of military-theme music, led by conductor Matt Catingub, will be simulcast on KSSK in synch with a 12-minute fireworks display beginning about 10:45 p.m. (Disney and military officials said Blaisdell Park in Pearl City and Rainbow Park in Aiea will be the best areas for the public to see the fireworks.)
Although Disney is averse to discussing premiere costs, the Mouse House has never shrunk from staging lavish events. At the February opening of the California Adventure Park adjacent to Disneyland, the company held "the ultimate beach party," which included barbecuing two tons of lobster. Bruckheimer is no slouch either. His premiere for "Armageddon" was at the Kennedy Space Center; "The Rock" debuted at Alcatraz.
"I think we'll do the next one on the moon," he joked.
It all adds to costs. "Pearl Harbor's" domestic print and advertising costs reportedly are about $70 million, with another $50 million for overseas marketing. Cook would not estimate what the picture needs to make to break even, but published reports say "Pearl Harbor" will have to make $300 million worldwide before approaching the break-even mark.
Neither the stars, Bay, nor Bruckheimer, earn a dime until "Pearl Harbor" reaches that point. But once that happens, according to Variety, Disney gives up a combined total of 15 to 17 percent of the film's gross to Bay and Bruckheimer, an unspecified percentage point to star Ben Affleck and deferred salaries to numerous people. Actors and some production staff agreed to salary deferments to lower the original budget.
Peter Schneider, Walt Disney Studios chairman, scoffed at that figure. "I will breathe very nicely if the film does $100 million domestically," he said.
Media were allowed to see "Pearl Harbor" Thursday night at the Waikiki Twins, though Disney has set an embargo on reviews until the film opens on Friday. Newsweek, however, was allowed to see the film and publish its review two weeks ago in an issue that featured Affleck and Beckinsale on the cover.
"Pearl Harbor" is scheduled to open in Japan July 14, at the start of the summer box-office season, playing on more than 400 screens, about 15 percent of the nation's total. The imperial family, prime minister, big-name celebrities and Tokyo's nationalist governor will be invited to the show. "But it will be nothing at all like we are doing in Hawaii," Cook said. "This is pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime experience."
ON TV
PREMIERE NIGHT
Just because you don't have an invite doesn't mean you have to miss the red-carpet action surrounding the premiere of "Pearl Harbor."All the hoopla will be covered beginning at 5 p.m. tomorrow on News 8, switching over to K5 at 6:30 p.m. for live coverage aboard the USS John C. Stennis.
The News 8 team, led by Howard Dashefsky, Jodi Leong and Diane Ako, will visit with cast and celebrities as they walk down the red carpet. Dashefsky will also sit down with NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw for an interview on his upcoming National Geographic special on Pearl Harbor and its correlation to the Hollywood version.
MSNBC SPECIAL
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf hosts a two-hour documentary, "Pearl Harbor: Attack on America," at 4 p.m. Thursday on MSNBC.The program will include rare color and black-and-white footage, and will examine not only at the attack, but also events leading up to it and the aftermath.
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