Jon Favreau And Tony Stark Face The Price Of Fame
(nabbed from a poster in the tonypepper community)
Jon Favreau And Tony Stark Face The Price Of Fame
If you loved the Iron Man movie, then you only have yourself to thank, according to director Jon Favreau... and, as a thank you, he's going to stop talking to you from now on. Wait, that can't be right. Is the drawback of a successful movie really that you have to be more secretive the second time around, or is Favreau just feeling the pressure of following up the summer's second most successful superhero movie?
Talking to Aint It Cool News last week, Favreau contemplated the role that fans and the internet played in the creation of the first Iron Man:
There was a shot in the Super Bowl ad that didn’t get there in time for that and the feedback on that gave me the ability to turn around and say “Look see, it’s not just me. They have a very high standard, these people. They don’t just eat what we feed them, we have to satisfy, you have to treat it like a chef, not like a short order cook. They’re not just going to eat what you put in front of them. If they don’t feel respected they will not support this thing. This has to be special. There’s too many movies like this out there. We have to win their approval.”
So I like the dialogue, I learn from the dialogue, I’m tremendously grateful to the fans for turning this thing into a phenomenon. All the mainstream press was saying shitty things under their breath in their articles writing about “Marvel parades out its’ B-list heroes does anybody give a shit?” And because the fans gave a shit and liked what we were doing and I was lucky enough to be making this movie in a time when there was still an appetite and there was a very vocal, viral online community where word would spread one way or the other when you’re doing something good and they like it word gets out there. And the next thing you know there are eight thousand prints on screens and shows selling out till three in the morning and them adding screenings and stuff because of people texting each other, and that all started from Comic-Con, that all started from people liking the first trailer.
But don't think that that means that won't change for Iron Man 2 because, as Morrissey once so succinctly put it, we hate it when our friends become successful:
[T]he hunger, the curiosity factor is much higher now. Since the [first] movie’s come out, just the way my… the things that I would sort of say informally on a little blog with some of the core fans would get picked up in mainstream press and on Hollywood type blogs. You have to be a little more selective in the way you… it can’t be quite so conversational because the way you turn a phrase it ends up leading people to conclusions they shouldn’t be led to or they might be misleading. I never want to lie to my fans.
But I reserve the right to keep certain things out of sight until it’s time to reveal them. I think everybody has snuck into their mom’s closet and seen their Christmas presents before they opened them and then taped them back shut and it’s just not as fun Christmas morning. And I want to make sure that everybody has a good time.
So I want to get enough out there that it keeps people excited and it rewards them for paying attention but I don’t want to blow the experience of the movie. And I think we barely squeaked by, I don’t know if there were any secrets that were not revealed by the time people saw the movie... I’m also dealing with a studio that tends to be very secretive about things. So I think that I’m going to probably be more open than most filmmakers would be, but I definitely don’t want to blow enough stuff… because stuff’s going to come out, between all the sites that there are. Stuff will be figured out on its own. And if we reveal too much stuff and certain things are figured out or spies get pictures of things we won’t have any razzle dazzle left for the actual release of the film, and that’s the only concern.
I can almost see his point; the buzz for the first movie adapting a well-loved comic/toyline/TV show/whatever is, as much as anything, "will they do it right?" as much as anything that actually has to do with the movie's plot details... but once the first movie's proven itself, fans (and I'm including myself in there) immediately seem to want to know everything about what happens next. But does that really mean that comments are picked apart more than they were for the "show me" stage before the first movie?
Nonetheless, don't take Favreau's reluctance at face value - In the same interview, he's already talking about setting up a Facebook page for the movie. What's next? Linkedin?
Jon Favreau And Tony Stark Face The Price Of Fame
If you loved the Iron Man movie, then you only have yourself to thank, according to director Jon Favreau... and, as a thank you, he's going to stop talking to you from now on. Wait, that can't be right. Is the drawback of a successful movie really that you have to be more secretive the second time around, or is Favreau just feeling the pressure of following up the summer's second most successful superhero movie?
Talking to Aint It Cool News last week, Favreau contemplated the role that fans and the internet played in the creation of the first Iron Man:
There was a shot in the Super Bowl ad that didn’t get there in time for that and the feedback on that gave me the ability to turn around and say “Look see, it’s not just me. They have a very high standard, these people. They don’t just eat what we feed them, we have to satisfy, you have to treat it like a chef, not like a short order cook. They’re not just going to eat what you put in front of them. If they don’t feel respected they will not support this thing. This has to be special. There’s too many movies like this out there. We have to win their approval.”
So I like the dialogue, I learn from the dialogue, I’m tremendously grateful to the fans for turning this thing into a phenomenon. All the mainstream press was saying shitty things under their breath in their articles writing about “Marvel parades out its’ B-list heroes does anybody give a shit?” And because the fans gave a shit and liked what we were doing and I was lucky enough to be making this movie in a time when there was still an appetite and there was a very vocal, viral online community where word would spread one way or the other when you’re doing something good and they like it word gets out there. And the next thing you know there are eight thousand prints on screens and shows selling out till three in the morning and them adding screenings and stuff because of people texting each other, and that all started from Comic-Con, that all started from people liking the first trailer.
But don't think that that means that won't change for Iron Man 2 because, as Morrissey once so succinctly put it, we hate it when our friends become successful:
[T]he hunger, the curiosity factor is much higher now. Since the [first] movie’s come out, just the way my… the things that I would sort of say informally on a little blog with some of the core fans would get picked up in mainstream press and on Hollywood type blogs. You have to be a little more selective in the way you… it can’t be quite so conversational because the way you turn a phrase it ends up leading people to conclusions they shouldn’t be led to or they might be misleading. I never want to lie to my fans.
But I reserve the right to keep certain things out of sight until it’s time to reveal them. I think everybody has snuck into their mom’s closet and seen their Christmas presents before they opened them and then taped them back shut and it’s just not as fun Christmas morning. And I want to make sure that everybody has a good time.
So I want to get enough out there that it keeps people excited and it rewards them for paying attention but I don’t want to blow the experience of the movie. And I think we barely squeaked by, I don’t know if there were any secrets that were not revealed by the time people saw the movie... I’m also dealing with a studio that tends to be very secretive about things. So I think that I’m going to probably be more open than most filmmakers would be, but I definitely don’t want to blow enough stuff… because stuff’s going to come out, between all the sites that there are. Stuff will be figured out on its own. And if we reveal too much stuff and certain things are figured out or spies get pictures of things we won’t have any razzle dazzle left for the actual release of the film, and that’s the only concern.
I can almost see his point; the buzz for the first movie adapting a well-loved comic/toyline/TV show/whatever is, as much as anything, "will they do it right?" as much as anything that actually has to do with the movie's plot details... but once the first movie's proven itself, fans (and I'm including myself in there) immediately seem to want to know everything about what happens next. But does that really mean that comments are picked apart more than they were for the "show me" stage before the first movie?
Nonetheless, don't take Favreau's reluctance at face value - In the same interview, he's already talking about setting up a Facebook page for the movie. What's next? Linkedin?