Word: petersen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...like mythology, war and beautiful people with no body hair, then Troy may be the movie for you. It recounts the story of the ancient impregnable city that was destroyed partly by its overreaching. The makers of Troy can probably sympathize. The movie was directed by Wolfgang Petersen, a skilled filmmaker who suffers from one fairly serious flaw: he is insane. His insanity is not crippling; since moving from Germany to Hollywood in 1987, Petersen has managed to make such bankable fare as In the Line of Fire, Air Force One and The Perfect Storm. But his condition is chronic...
...only people mad enough to employ Petersen on a regular basis are movie executives, who are trapped in an increasingly illogical if undeniably daring way of doing business. The latest proof is Petersen's loose adaptation of Homer's The Iliad, starring Pitt, Eric Bana and Orlando Bloom. With a budget that Warner Bros. (which, like TIME, is part of Time Warner) puts at $175 million--but that several sources say has crept closer to a quarter of a billion dollars--Troy is one of the biggest, craziest movie gambits since Titanic. It's not just that the film required...
...multiplexes and scatters the competition. Troy opens in roughly 3,500 locations on May 14, the week after Van Helsing and a week before Shrek 2. If it doesn't open huge or if it dies soon after it opens, it could do untold harm to the careers of Petersen, Pitt and numerous Warner Bros. executives. "On something this big, it'll come down on me and everyone else they're selling it on," says Pitt. "There are people keeping close score, believe me. I just hope they also pay attention to the story...
...office revenues are factored in, but even he admits there's risk. So why make such a sprawling hydra of a movie and throw it into Hollywood's most competitive season? In part because no one knows anything. Troy could be a monster hit. But for everyone from Petersen and Horn to the lowliest production assistant, the audacity of the enterprise is, in large part, the point. "As an actor [on a movie like this], you get to feel like you're an explorer," says Bana. "It's completely different from being tucked away in some air-conditioned studio every...
...Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice has been nobody's fool. I may not agree with her, but I respect her integrity." GABRIELLA PETERSEN San Francisco...