One of the things I love about Chris Lee, that top exec guy, is the following sort of thing. Thanks Chris, for showing Porco Rosso here, your product reel.
Christopher Lee, President of Productions for TriStar pictures recently came to speak at my school. He was mostly talking about Asians in the film industry (as the Asian American Student Association had brought him there). He did, however, talk a little bit about some of TriStar's upcoming films and he showed us a tape of trailers, two of which he said had not yet been shown in theaters.
What he talked about:
Godzilla, a little bit. He mentioned that he had just seen the movie for the first time this week, that it is mostly done, but is still missing around 200 special effects shots. He also talked a little bit about the history of the film, which was quite interesting. Apparently, he first had the idea for it 6 or 7 years ago when he was just a VP. He ended up having a whole bunch of writers write up some scripts and picked one that he liked. Apparently, they worked with this script for six months with Jan De Bont, but ended up deciding that the version that De Bont wanted to do would be too expensive. After that, he convinced Devlin and Emmerich to do the film. (This, apparently, was before Independence Day.) They wrote a new script, and that's the one that is being released. He also said that a new, longer trailer (not so much of a teaser like the last one) would be playing on the release of Lost In Space.
The trailers shown were:
The Big Hit - A new film directed by Kirk Wong. The executive producer is John Woo. This looks to be an action/comedy type film. This was a pretty long trailer, introducing all the main characters (who, apparently, are some sorts of thieves or hitmen). Then, it appears, they kidnap the wrong girl (the daughter of a big gangster?) and have to get themselves out of the mess they've created. This was a neat trailer, starting out slow, introducing us to the people and then speeding up the pace of the editing, finally ending with rapid cuts between lots of different action shots.
The Mask of Zorro - I have not seen this trailer in the theater, but I suspect it has been shown already. It was just a longer version of the ads that I have seen on television. Apparently, Anthony Hopkins is the old, retired Zorro and Antonio Banderas wants to become the new Zorro so he goes to Hopkins for training. Lots of fighting scenes, etc. This looks like it could be a fun movie if they don't screw it up majorly.
(Chris Columbus film) - This film did not yet have a title. It stars Julia
Roberts, Ed Harris and Susan Sarandon. Ed Harris is a father who has
divorced Susan Sarandon and re-married a munch younger woman, Julia
Roberts. The two children in the family (a girl and boy, the girl is older)
live with their father and his new wife. It is about the troubles that the
Julia Roberts character has being accepted by the children. From what I
could tell from the trailer, it seems to focus mostly on Roberts, and the
relationship between her, the children and Sarandon. Looks to be one of
those dramas where everything turns out okay in the end and everyone learns
an important lesson about acceptance Godzilla - The same Godzilla trailer that has already been shown, with the
guy going fishing in the East River.
