Published at: Jan. 27, 2000, 1:40 p.m. CST by staff
Greetings, citizens! ROBOGEEK here with an important bit of breaking news.
VARIETY reported today that DISNEY has greenlit PEARL HARBOR at a budget around $130-135 million. That's right, DISNEY found the cojones to bankroll the whole enchilada, and I say bravo!
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay have apparently not only given up their usual (and sizable) upfront fees, they've also agreed to delay their gross participation (i.e. slice of the box office pie) until after Disney breaks even on the project. This saves Disney perhaps as much as $50 million up front -- and therefore let's us see this movie. They are that passionate about this project, that dedicated to seeing this (apparently fantastic) Randall Wallace screenplay brought to a silver screen near you (click here to read Harry's review of it). I personally think they deserve some serious applause for putting their money where their mouth is.
Film SHOULD be about passion, or it's not worth doing. Apparently Harrison Ford has remembered that, thankfully (see Harry's story today). Now let's hope that others follow suit -- like, oh, maybe ARNOLD... who could then usher forth such utter greatness as Paul Verhoeven's CRUSADE (HAGEN!!!), the Randall Wallace-scripted WITH WINGS AS EAGLES, and those other incredible projects that are gathering dust because of their budgets.
"Pearl Harbor" will begin production this spring (April or May), and is slated for release around Memorial Day, 2001. Shooting will apparently take place in Los Angeles, Hawaii, Texas (yee-haw!), and Baja California (at the Fox Baja studio built for "Titanic").
