OHF promotion/interviews

[elenoire]

www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gerard-butler-300-sequel-olympus-428175


The Hollywood Reporter: Do you think you could be a secret service agent and put your life on the line for someone like the president in real life?

Butler: I think I could do it. I think it would be a pretty fascinating job, but I think that it is interesting to have to live with that concept every day, that it’s your job to die for another individual or another group of individuals. But there’s something heroic in that as well. On top of that, it seems it’s a very engaging job, there’s so much to learn, there’s so much knowledge required and talents and training that the guys that I spoke to that do it, they loved it.

THR: Ten years ago, this movie would have been about al Qaeda trying to come get the president. So as the villain of American foreign policy changes, so do the villains of the movie.

Butler: Otherwise nobody would go see the movie. Twenty or 30 years ago, it would have been about the Russians, 50 years ago it would have been the Germans. If you made it about the Spanish, people would go, "I don’t get that. I don’t really feel a threat from Spain right now." But it’s a good point because it’s all about making the story, this geo-political climate as plausible as possible, and making the attack, the meticulous calculation, the genius behind that, is plausible as possible.

THR: When you look back on American movies in wartime, whether it was about the Japanese or Native Americans, they are stereotypes. That’s a danger, a trap that I don't think you fall into here.

Butler: It is a danger, but because what happens here is so brutal and appalling, we had to make out that even though they have causes that are real to them, what they’re doing is so ridiculous that you don’t really spend time getting to know them. We want to make Rick Yune -- Kang -- a well-rounded character. You understand his motivations and how he is with his people, but other than that, often watching as little of the villains as possible keeps that mystery. It sucks you in more. The second you have your villain standing up and giving speeches about his politics and his viewpoints, every second you watch that, the threat dissipates, I think. So we limited that.

THR: You do a lot of different kinds of movies; do you feel like you don’t get credit enough for doing that?

Butler: Sometimes. I think some people appreciate it and some people don’t. I’ve watched many different actors who are great at what they do, they’re all good actors but they generally do the same thing. But I always thought, "How cool would it be to show people, because you can, all different kinds of things?" From musicals to animated movies to comedies to dark comedies to drama to thriller to big action movies. And I think some people appreciate that and probably some people don’t.

THR: Is that the reason why you decided not to do the 300 sequel?

Butler: No, not really. I wasn’t really available to do 300. It was hard to work out the dates. I think that’s going to be a great movie and I love that team of people. 300 was my most special moment.

THR: That was the movie that made you a star. It’s still played all the time.

Butler: (Laughing) Yeah, it was my bar mitzvah.

THR: You also built a huge White House in Louisiana. I didn’t initially realize that. Day by day, you’re destroying a gigantic version of the White House. That must have been weird to watch.

Butler: It was weird to watch it go up for me, but especially for people in Shreveport, and it was even weirder to watch it come down. Because then we were just blowing up the guard boxes and the whole White House. I fly helicopters sometimes and I flew over there when it was just destroyed and it was amazing to see the wreckage from a bird’s eye view. But it was also really cool.

THR: In my neighborhood, there’s still a gigantic billboard of you in Playing for Keeps. I always walk past it and think, that must be so weird, to see one’s self that big. Is that weird, the first time you saw that?

Butler: I still find it weird. Sometimes you say, "Good, there’s a billboard!" I want to see as many of them as possible to help get the word out about the movie. And then other times, you go, “Wait a minute, that’s me. I’m Gerry. I grew up as a little kid in Scotland peeing my pants and now I’m up here on a billboard in Hollywood." The first time I ever saw it, when I played Attila the Hun, which was for USA Network, a mini-series. Seeing myself up there, such a buzz.

THR: And Attila the Hun isn’t the most glamorous.

Butler: Well listen, it was for America, so we turned him glamorous. Long hair, dark eyebrows, beard, this really intense look. Tanned face. Not really what Attila probably looked like.

THR: This is going to be one of those movies that will play on cable TV on the fourth of July and President's Day every single year.

Butler: I hope so. I think it lives up to that. Though it's interesting, on President's Day, the White House being destroyed.

[elenoire]

www.hollywoodoutbreak.com/2013/03/12/gerard-butler-goes-deeper-into-the-world-of-olympus-has-fallen/

Directed by Training Day filmmaker Antoine Fuqua, Olympus Has Fallen is an action packed feature which has the White House under siege by terrorists.

Gerard Butler is Mike Banning, a former special forces officer who wages a one-man mission in saving the President (Aaron Eckhart). If Banning doesn’t complete his duties, the fate of the United States also hangs in the balance!

Along with his acting duties, Butler is also a hands on producer for many of his projects (he served as a producer on Chasing Mavericks and the romantic comedy Playing for Keeps).

During the interviews for Olympus Has Fallen, Butler talked about how producing helps take him deeper into the world of his respective projects.

soundcloud.com/hollywood-outbreak/gerard-butler-goes-deeper-into audio clip

[TeePat]

I really love reading and hearing Gerry's interviews about OHF and his other movies. He is so passionate and he comes across as someone who is very very intelligent and completely involved in every project. He really does put his all into it and I love that the best about him. He needs more projects of this caliber and soon!

[elenoire]

www.nbcnews.com/id/3036697/#51154128

New film imagines presidential hostage situation

Chris Matthews talks with actors Aaron Eckhart, Angela Bassett, and Gerard Butler about their new film, “Olympus Has Fallen,” which tells the story about a disgraced Secret Service agent who finds himself trapped in the White House after the president is held hostage by North Korean terrorists.

video.msnbc.msn.com/hardball/51154128

[fifiserafino]

WARNING: MODEL ALERT, SMOKING ALERT[/size][/color]

You know what they say ... leopard ... spots .....


observer.com/2013/03/gerald-butler-does-a-great-job-explaining-his-new-film-to-the-ladies/

Gerald Butler Does a Great Job Explaining His New Film to the Ladies[/size]


On Monday evening, Gerard Butler stood outside The Darby, waving around a cigarette animatedly, flanked by a model on either side. His gesticulations punctuated his excited rant on why these ladies–who were already at the Cinema Society after-party for his latest film, Olympus Has Fallen–should actually try to see it.

“It’s not JUST an action film,” said Mr. Butler, which is true. It’s technically an action thriller, with the following premise:

Agent Mike Banning (Butler) is a Secret Service agent assigned to Presidential Detail. After a tragic accident, he is demoted and assigned to desk duty. When the White House (Secret Service Code: “Olympus”) is captured by a terrorist mastermind and the President (Aaron Eckhart) is held hostage, Banning finds himself trapped within the building. As the national security team scrambles to respond, they are forced to rely on Banning’s inside knowledge to help retake the White House, save the President, and avert an even bigger disaster.

In Mr. Butler’s mind, this is the equivalent of Sex and the City 3. “I get mad when people say, ‘Oh, it’s such a boys’ movie,’” he said, craning up to face the two towering women who stood a good half a foot above him in their heels. “It’s actually quite a chick flick too.” We’re assuming by “chick flick,” Mr. Butler meant that there are women in the film. (Specifically, two women: Melissa Leo and Angela Bassett.)

“It’s totally for women,” he said, still in pitch mode. “And you don’t even have to be American to like it! I’m not, and I liked it.”

Fair enough.

When one of the models coyly asked if he’d be bringing a beautiful girlfriend to the L.A. premiere, the suave 300 actor replied, “I don’t know, what are you doing the 19th?”

Very smooth, Mr. Butler. Very smooth.

[fifiserafino]

www.eurweb.com/2013/03/the-film-strip-gerard-butler-olympus-has-fallen-faced-his-demons/

The Film Strip: Gerard Butler (‘Olympus Has Fallen’) Faced His Demons[/size]



*The Energizer Bunny had nothing over Gerard Butler when he sat down to talk with The Film Strip about his new enthralling, engrossing thriller “Olympus Has Fallen.”

Rightly so, Butler was extremely hyped about this particular project for not only its entertainment value but because he is one of the producers. His enthusiasm was such that he even told me he wondered if he would enough stamina for the next series of question when he left the room, having spoken in a rapid fire rhythm the whole time.

Gerard, how did being a producer influence your performance?
I think it had everything to do with it. One of the reasons I did it, is so you can have as much influence as possible over the script. I mean, we ripped this script apart and rebuilt it to be the freshest, most modern, heart pounding and provocative action thriller and yet give it some sophistication and some real interesting characters that you could follow and get connected with on the journey. Working on that with Antoine (Fuaua) we said, ‘How do we make this attack as shocking and yet as plausible as possible?’ Antoine saw it all, creating the ugly side, the beautiful side and just grounding it and making it as logical and methodical. Then creating that situation where you literally believe that the White House is besieged, that there is a real hostage situation underground and there are people being executed. There’s also a crisis room dealing with these decisions that will affect the human race essentially, especially with an imminent war and how all these things will connect? How do these personalities meld while humanizing it and offering real people. Those people you usually see, they make decisions that you don’t usually see but suddenly you’re there with them and realizing they’re just humans like us. They’re under pressure. They’re trying to do the right thing. They may not all have opinions that we agree with but they all believe they’re coming from the right place and they make mistakes. I think that’s a really fascinating concept especially when you up the ante and say the whole world is relying on you making the right decision but nobody knows what the right decision is at that point. Then you throw me in the middle of all that and as a guy who’s thrown in this position, and he’s been like a caged animal since his fall from grace, the tragedy that happens earlier on in the movie and now he’s there in the middle of it all. He’s there to perform a function that he’s been trained his entire life to do and that’s all he wants to do. He’s so dedicated; he’ll do whatever it takes. He’s in that position to protect the president and protect the interests of the country. So he, too, even has some tough decision to make. What do you do? Do you sacrifice the president and avoid a war or do you start a war and save the president? There’s all these very riveting, compelling ideas in there. So that’s why I wanted to be a producer. Then as an actor you just want the most interesting role possible. But, to be honest, you want him to be badass. When you get down to the most primal level it’s like any movie you’ve ever watched like ‘Taken’ or ‘Law Abiding Citizen’ because when it comes to payback, or revenge, that’s a very delicious concept. You’re left with this movie after seeing a lot of people die. Military service men that died trying to defend this country and you’re left seething. You’re ripped apart. You’re appalled. You need to see people suffer and then enter Mike Banning.

Any injuries during the fight scenes?
I actually started taking photos of my injuries because I cut all my hands, I was doing a fight scene where I was hit me, and we must have done it a thousand times. My arm went back all the way to my elbow. I was hit in the eye by a bullet casing that hit a wall and then hit me in the eye. It hit me so hard, I thought I’d been punched in the face. I was hit by another bullet casing in my back. You’re always getting hit by debris from explosions. Every fucking explosion that happened it was like—‘Put Gerry five feet from there! Earplugs’… And then the fighting itself, because I’m being smashed around, I’m smashing people around and you’re doing it and you’re in it, you’re not thinking about it. You’re always getting hurt. Dylan flicked a cigarette and because I had glycerin down my throat, it hit and then the burning. I throat chopped him and he got a cut in his throat there and he had to go to the doctor about it. This is just one night by the way. All I could think was what if that cigarette had gone in my eye because my buddy had had something like that and he was in six months of hell. There’s always those risks and they hopefully become stories but when you do an action movie, you sign on for that. Antoine, even before we started the day, went — ‘Bad intentions.’ That was his line ‘Bad intentions, Gerry,’ to get that feeling to remind you why the fuck you’re there. I’m there with bad intentions but yet at the same time, in some ways that simplifies it because I love him being an army ranger and also in the secret service. So he knows how to irradiate. He knows how to kill. He knows how to make people suffer but he also knows how to do recognizance, how to find information, how to establish lines of communication, how to formulate plans, how to think on his feet. So you’ve got all of that because he can’t just go in, he’s one guy and has no ammo and is against 42 terrorists and they have the president in a sealed room downstairs. What are you gonna do? You gotta be thinking on your feet, you’ve got to use your intimate knowledge of the White House, you’ve got to know protocol and then you have to be able to step outside protocol when it’s necessary and you’ve got to be able to use psychological tactics. So you start screwing with the bad guy. How are you gonna make him question his tactics? So you’ve got all that going on as well and that’s what we were working for, was how could we get all these other fascinating ideas of what would really be going down while you’re in there and that’s what we were always up til two in the morning working on when you had to be back up by six. It was a blast working with Antoine. One, he’s the most appreciative guy. Him and I are so tight—he’s the dude. You know he’s killing it and you’re moving fast and efficiently, and you’re creating. You’re bouncing ideas off each other and you’re working with Morgan Freeman and Aaron Eckhart and Angela Bassett, this incredible cast who are giving meaning and substance to these roles that could otherwise be really cardboard. Then you got yourself a watchable action thriller. I wish I had recorded that. I’ll be in the next room and going, ‘it was good,’ and thinking ‘what did I say in the other room?’ [Laughs]

You’ve mixed it up quite a bit with ‘Machine Gun Preacher’ and ‘Corolanus’ and then some comedies after ‘300.’ Why back with the action thriller?
I always mandated that I would try and keep it interesting and keep challenging myself. Whether other people see it that way, I don’t know. It was time to take on and go back to that heroic, mythical element about a guy who has to face his own inner demons whilst trying to fight the outer demons as well and go on this journey that feels impossible but brings out all the aspects of a human being that we aspire to be. We all have those elements of facing up to fear and testing your loyalty and trying to understand yourself and what this is all really about. Antoine is big into that as well. That’s what I love. He’s a director who is an artist, he is masculine but at the same time he is incredibly sensitive and really about the issues with the relationship with the kid, with the wife. He gets all that and he gets the inner workings of who we are as human beings. We’ve been doing these audience screenings to see the reactions and try and get a buzz out there because we feel we have a really good movie and you describe a movie as ‘edge of your seat’ and someone wrote after the movie the other night said, ‘I’d always wondered what edge of your seat meant, now I understand. I spent the whole movie literally on the edge of my seat’ and I think that it does that.

[mydear]

Fifi Thanks

[beacon1]

Link to Today Show interview (it's on the msnbc site if this doesn't work) www.nbcnews.com/id/8004316/ns/video/

And, then:

Link to the Pie contest on Today Show (also under "food" under Today in msnbc videos) www.nbcnews.com/id/8004316/ns/video/

[jhawk]

Great interviews. Love them. Make him beg, oh yeah!!

[fifiserafino]

Thanks Lily www.politico.com/story/2013/03/cinematic-terrorists-strike-washington-88883.html

Movie: North Korea takes D.C.[/size]

Link includes extensive video interview with Gerry and Antoine and the cast



The new action movie “Olympus Has Fallen” might make Washingtonians a little uncomfortable.

The film presents in vivid detail Washington — and the White House, in particular — being taken over by a North Korean paramilitary group. Citizens walking up Pennsylvania Avenue are gunned down by warplanes. The White House’s north gate is blown up, leading to a gunfight that takes out almost every Secret Service agent. The hallways, rooms and historical artifacts of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., are destroyed in an orgy of gun spray and grenades. Even the Washington Monument gets toppled.

The set, built in Shreveport, La., is as realistic a portrayal of Washington as Hollywood has ever produced, and so it’s understandable filmgoers might leave the theater looking at their city somewhat differently.

“I gotta be honest: We were both nervous [Tuesday night] when we screened it to this packed house, full of Washington politicos and journalists,” actor Gerard Butler told POLITICO. “There were Secret Service there, everybody involved in every walk of life was there. And when the action started, I was like ugh …But they loved it!”

Butler plays Secret Service agent Mike Banning and says the decision to realistically portray a terrorist takeover of the White House is essential to the film’s power.

“Things get ugly,” he said, adding terrorists “don’t discriminate. So we wanted to actually show it as it is and make it as powerful and visceral an experience as possible because … it allows, in a way, a greater space for heroism to come through, because the darker the hour, the more that pulls out of us.”

Butler says, despite the film’s destruction laid at the hand’s of the People’s House, they’re working on getting a screening shown at the White House. Director Antoine Fuqua says they haven’t gotten any reaction yet from the White House to the film, but assures politicos that “we actually love Washington.”

“We put so much energy into that because me and Gerard were sitting around saying, if the White House isn’t the White House, the movie’s over. If it doesn’t look real, they’re going to check out.”

[mydear]

WOW....FIFI.....your signature
I´m falling from my cher and need a cold shower....
and my work......i can forget puh......

[fifiserafino]

Here you go mydear

It's like he's looking right AT you isn't it?

[mydear]

Mar 15, 2013 7:01:21 GMT -5 fifiserafino said:

Here you go mydear

It's like he's looking right AT you isn't it?

THANK FIFI .... I had desperately needed.

exactly ... it's the eyes and the look.
I think of the snake from the jungle book ... grin
really mesmerizing.

[Lily]

Fifiserafino and Elenoire !!!! Great Job !!!

[fifiserafino]

An intelligent blog jmhocelluloidjunkie.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/olympus-has-fallen-is-one-wild-ride/

Olympus Has Fallen is One Wild Ride![/size]



Antoine Fuqua’s Olympus Has Fallen is probably the wildest ride you’ll take since the last time you rode Space Mountain, the Cyclone or even Kingda Ka*. Watching this action adventure is the equivalent of a turn on one of the world’s scariest roller coasters with a release of adrenaline and dopamine that makes us feel frightened, shocked, giddy and intensely alive. Whenever I get off a rollercoaster, I want to get right back on. I felt the same way after I saw this movie.

As I mentioned in an earlier post on this blog (and in several others elsewhere**), I’ve been following the progress of Olympus Has Fallen since March of 2012 when Millennium acquired the rights to the screenplay by Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt and Gerard Butler signed on to star. While it was briefly retitled White House Taken, it was always described as “’Die Hard in the White House’ that follows a down-on-his-luck ex-Secret Service (Butler) agent who becomes America’s only hope when 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is taken over by terrorists”.

That tag brought with it immediate recognition for most movie-goers, as well as some derision from quite a few who write about film. Having just seen it, I can not only say the comparison was apt, but that it seems everyone else who’s actually seen it thus far would agree. (What’s the Scottish equivalent of “Yippee Ki-yay Motherfucker”?)

Olympus Has Fallen seems to have decided that the best way to get the word out about their film and how good it is, is to actually show it to people. Not to critics or press necessarily, but to people interested in seeing movies for their own sake; members of the ticket-buying public. THIS, in my humble opinion, is the way it should be done – take it to the people and avoid self-important “critics” or at least side step them.

Last night, as I waited in line for one such screening here in Boston, I passed the time talking to a couple of guys who had never been to a screening before but Fandango had been offering passes and the movie looked “kind of cool. Plus it was free.” Once inside the auditorium, we parted ways (because I like to sit in front), but they waited for me outside. ( One of them even snagged me one of the souvenir pins that they were handing out that I would have missed since I stayed until the credits were over.) They were both SO excited about the movie and planned to not only tell their friends about it, but wanted to come back with them and see it again. This is exactly what a screening is designed to do.

While the idea of free screenings is not a new one, Millennium Films, Film District and the producers of Olympus Has Fallen (Fuqua and Butler among them) are taking the game to the next level. Through the use of social media like Twitter and Facebook, coupled with the screenings, they are currently riding a wave of tremendous (and tremendously positive) buzz. What’s more they’ve done it in about six weeks. I know I lamented the lack of PR for Olympus Has Fallen when the first images from that other, similarly themed movie, White House Down, were released way back in November of last year. Despite the fact that a new, earlier release date was announced in December, the first trailer wasn’t released until mid-January, but since then there has been a steady stream of posters, clips, and images leading up to a flurry of interviews, appearances, pre-press and a LOT of nationwide screenings.

To my knowledge there haven’t been any press screenings yet. The PR team is using social media to publicize the screenings and advertise the feedback ahead of giving the film to the usual outlets or websites. That’s not to say they don’t want favorable press or that write-ups by well-established reviewers won’t appear. They are, after all, also utilizing tv spots and releasing clips to some of those websites. My point is that even if critics trash the movie or the press pans it, it won’t matter. The buzz is already too strong, word-of-mouth too favorable. With less than a week to go before general release here in the US, it would seem they’ve effectively neutralized any possible negativity. That’s probably a rosy-hued opinion, but this could become a new model for movie marketing.

So just what can you expect when you get a chance to see it? We’ve all heard the term “edge-of-your-seat” thriller. If you’ve never actually been on the edge of your seat while watching a movie and thought that was just so much hyperbole, that is exactly the place from which you will watch most of this movie.

If you’ve seen a trailer or clip, you know that the relative calm with which the movie opens, a picture of a happy family that just happens to include the President of the United States (Aaron Eckhart), won’t last. It’s like the clickety-clacking of that rollercoaster slowly making its way up to the first peak and then BAM! We get a brief respite while we and the characters on screen recover. When the action starts again, it really starts and seldom lets up for the next hour and a half.

Director Antoine Fuqua’s pacing and the talented cast keep us from looking too closely for the zippers up the backs of the monsters. The plot moves so fast and the actors sell it so well, that we don’t have time to look for holes. (And I’m not saying I saw any, but when you’re biting your nails and dodging bullets you don’t have a moment to think about whether or not “that would really happen”.)



If you think the sight of the Washington monument moments after a plane hits it looks familiar, it’s supposed to. It evokes one of the defining moments of our country’s recent history for a reason. It’s designed to deliberately stir our patriotism precisely so that when the shooting stops, you understand the journey that the people who inhabit the United States on screen under President Asher, have just been on. It neatly sidesteps jingoism by giving the bad guy (Rick Yune as Kang) a cause, but not delving too deeply into his back story except to let us know that however just that cause may or may not be and how cool, calculated and brilliant he may appear, he took the train to Crazy Town long ago.

It avoids predictability by resolving one subplot in particular quickly, without dragging it out into cliché and also by not treating the hostages as “damsels-in-distress” waiting to be saved, but as tough patriots determined to go down swinging if that is their fate. Again, I have to stress the brilliant casting. Without an actress of Oscar winner Melissa Leo’s caliber, we might not buy a female Secretary of Defense or what she undergoes in that bunker. The same could be said of Angela Bassett’s Director of the Secret Service. Her part was originally written for a man, since there has never been a female director. She is completely plausible and despite the fact that we never learn a single thing about her background, with Bassett’s performance we can understand how tough Lynn Jacobs would have to be to even be considered for the job.



Can we talk about Gerard Butler now? I think readers of this blog know that I’m kinda partial and I’m not one sees anything wrong with the fact that he mixes genres and continues to try new things, but if he was going to return to action/adventure, this was the movie to do it with. Butler is credible as Agent Mike Banning, the head of the President’s protection detail, mentor and guardian of the President’s son as well as Agent-in-Exile Mike Banning, with barely contained anxiety with the desire to get back “in”. We absolutely by him as an ex-special forces commando able to thin the enemies numbers single-handedly. We especially buy his banter. The many one-liners he gets off are hilarious.

I’m trying not to spoil anything (and in some ways I think there have been too many clips of the film released. I will say this, it’s all about context), but I can tell you that the fight scenes you may have seen as well as the battles and carnage are but the tip of the iceberg. I am serious when I tell you this movie doesn’t let up until the last two minutes of screen time. I can also tell you that the audience I saw the movie with laughed, whooped and gasped at appropriate times and then erupted into cheers and applause when the bad guy finally bought it.

There will be people for whom this movie will be too much. Too much noise, too much blood, too much suspended disbelief, just too much. (For me there was a little too much kettle drum in the score.) This is a hard-R action movie. Lots of shit gets blowed up and the F-word is carpet bombed. It won’t please everyone, nor should it. Those that like this sort of thing will love it. My first response to a friend after I saw the movie? “However good you THINK Olympus Has Fallen will be-multiply that by 10”.

The only nit I’ll pick was that I think there was probably originally more to Mike Banning’s relationship with his wife that didn’t make the final cut. Radha Mitchell is very good in her limited screen time and both she and Butler do convey a sense of the state of their relationship with very little, but I do believe we were denied a love scene. Just puttin’ that out there.

According to the New York Times, when the special Cinema Society screening ended on Monday night (3/11/13) in New York “and the credits rolled, the audience cheered. ‘Wow,’ said Harvey Weinstein as he shook Mr. Butler’s hand with gusto; in the lobby, he accosted Antoine Fuqua, the director. ‘You’ll do a hundred-million-plus,’ he told him (box-office-speak for big).” Have I mentioned this one has industry buzz as well? So not only did Harvey attend the screening of a movie he had nothing to do with, but he predicted it would be huge. HUGE!

Suck it Ryan Kavanagh. Just puttin’ that out there too.[/size]