Word: disneying
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...idea for the film came from Todd Garner, a Disney executive at the time. He approached Bruckheimer, who says he was intrigued by "a period that had a lot of innocence and a lot of brutality at the same time." The concept now seems like a no-brainer; Steven Spielberg (with Saving Private Ryan) and NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw (in his Greatest Generation books) have spun America's World War II nostalgia into gold, but market research for Pearl Harbor showed that the desirable high-moviegoing audience of ages 19 to 24 generally had no idea what Pearl Harbor...
...Disney has spent months trying to counter this attitude. Dozens of young workers in a chaotic Tokyo office dart from desk to desk with armloads of flyers and press kits. A woman digs through a mountainous pile of movie stills; visitors mill under a massive close-up of Affleck. This is the war room, campaign headquarters for Disney's high-stakes launch. Pearl Harbor's budget?one of the biggest in history?is more than double the industry average and means the movie has to earn $400 million worldwide just to break even. But in Japan the company...
...Disney also reshot some scenes and edited others specifically for the Japanese market. Some of the changes were made for reasons of credibility, the sort of alterations that are routine in the movie business. In the U.S. version, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese commander, rips a page off a calendar to show the date of the bomb attack, Dec. 7. In Japan, the calendar flips to Dec. 8, which was the date of the attack, Tokyo time. Scenes involving Mako, the Japanese-American actor who plays Yamamoto, were rerecorded for Japan. "No one in the States would notice he spoke...
...Despite Disney's spin, Internet chat rooms reflect a certain hostility. Hundreds have joined a thread titled, Committee to Boycott Pearl Harbor. One contributor gripes: "They'll probably make a movie called Hiroshima next, in which heroic American soldiers bomb those evil Japanese and save the world." Another writes: "In Armageddon, you could excuse the message that America is number one because it's science fiction. But Pearl Harbor looks to be pure propaganda...
...Disney is counting on the younger generation, who make up 80% of the movie-going public. But if the reactions of movie fans exiting the Tokyo premiere are any guide, this won't be a slam dunk. Naho Okada, a 17-year-old student, attended the premiere because Ben Affleck is "such a hottie." But the war scenes made her "uncomfortable," she says. Others were more blunt. "You can't make a film about this subject and not be critical of Japan," says Eri Watanabe, a 23-year-old housewife, "But I think it's pretty egotistical of Disney...