Word: harborers
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...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 Tom Brokaw (in his Greatest Generation books) have spun America's WW II nostalgia into gold, but market research for Pearl Harbor showed that the desirable high-moviegoing audience of adults ages 19 to 24 generally had no idea what Pearl Harbor...
Enter Michael Bay, who had wowed young audiences for Bruckheimer as director of Bad Boys, The Rock and Armageddon. "I felt the time was right for him to make a spectacular movie," says Bruckheimer, who is known for his loyalty. "Michael is his generation's Spielberg or Lucas." (Pearl Harbor's costume designer, Michael Kaplan, is the same guy who cut up sweat shirts for Bruckheimer's 1983 Flashdance.) With screenwriter Randall Wallace (Braveheart), they took a cue from the Titanic playbook and composed a central fictional love story. Two strapping pilots (Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett), friends since boyhood...
Schneider is now hopeful about Pearl Harbor's prospects abroad (it will be released in Japanese theaters July 14 with minor changes in dialogue but with the same title); but before the studio would agree to make the movie, Bay and Bruckheimer had to shave the cost. They gave up their own up-front fees, persuaded cast members like Affleck to take pay cuts and canceled traditional studio-movie goodies like a wrap party and jackets for the crew. "We joked that this was the most expensive independent movie ever made," says Bay, who threatened to quit several times over...
Bruckheimer admits that he went into the movie with little knowledge of Pearl Harbor. "I never took history after high school," he says. And he had no personal tie to the war. His father, a first-generation German immigrant, did not fight in WW II. Instead, Bruckheimer's dad scraped by selling clothes in a fancy Detroit men's store while his son imagined life beyond his meager surroundings. "I could stretch out my arms in my bedroom and touch both walls," recalls Bruckheimer. He escaped to the movies as often as he could and dreamed of making films like...
...directing himself. But there's one thing about Bruckheimer that won't change. "My biggest thrill is when I sit in a theater and watch people laugh and cry and cheer," he says. "You start with a little idea and make it happen and watch it explode." Pearl Harbor may be loud enough to drown out the critics...