I'm in the middle of the book now, and although it took awhile to get used to that "writing style," I'm into it now. If this director keeps all of the dark elements from the book in this film, it will be some film, let me tell you!
I hope this film gets NC-17, this way I can know for sure all the dark parts are there. For example: the man shows the boy how to shoot himself in the head, should the proper time come - 'you put the gun in your mouth and point up'
I'm hoping to be utterly devastated after seeing this movie. Anything less will be a disapointment.
As a whole the trailer doesn't convey the book very well, IMO. The action is played up way too much. My take on the book is that it's largely 'quiet' with a handful of very tense, scary moments. That trailer made it seem like the opposite. I also don't like what the very beginning of the trailer implies as the reason the world has ended.
Nor do I. It doesn't match the book (which subtly indicates a nuclear war). The world doesn't seem nearly f'ed up enough.
They are clearly going for an I Am Legend vibe, with is nothing, NOTHING like the book. But that is just selling the film. I don't think it is reflective of the film itself.
That trailer is everything that is wrong with the movie industry right now. We have discussed at length how hard it will be to market a film like this. They need to put asses in seats. I will see it no matter what. I am very disappointed. I think subtlety would have worked better.
i can't express how much i hope that they exclude all of the newsreel end-of-the-world bullshit from the final cut; if they give any more information about armageddon than is provided in the book, it will be terrible.
as for the rest of the trailer, 99% of the scenes are in the book; they're just all of the tense moments strung together in 90 seconds.
the other 1% involve charlize - i guess it was always inevitable that they'd flesh out her role a bit more in the film.
i'm still not sure if i'm going to see this, only because i remain skeptical that the lyrical austerity of mccormac's prose is (losslessly) translatable into the celluloid medium.
I still think that this movie can not work the way it is written. Most people I know want an action packed movie with a happy ending or at least an implied happy ending. This book is depressing from beginning to end so you either love it or hate it.
I think you underestimate movie audiences (mature movie audiences). A) you got fans of the book who will want to see the movie - that alone will probably pay for the movie.
Then you have the B-factor. The B-factor is people who want to go to the movies to be "moved emotionally." People who are tired of the cliches evident in "blockbusters," tired of knowing the ending after the first 10 minutes of the movie....! I believe this film will not be a contrived formula that's been done time and again - no happy metropolis awaiting at the end for The Man and The Boy, no sir.
The word of mouth alone - forget the trailer - will generate billions, if the film is as good as it is supposed to be.
And to those C-factor people, I'm sure there will be an Adam Sandler movie in the fall (not that there's anything wrong with that).
If you read the Esquire article from earlier, the author makes clear that the movie has none of that stuff on the front of the trailer. Indeed, he finds the Weinstein marketing philosophy rather dumbfounding. I'd agree...I haven't read the book, but based that article and the discussion here, even giving an inkling of what caused the apocalypse undermines the whole point of the story. Seeing that crap will turn off people who love the book, and frustrate people who are coming in cold, expecting to see some destruction.
Regardless, I'll definitely be seeing this. Uncompromising end-of-the-world stories have always interested me ('On the Beach' and 'Testament' come to mind). I also liked Hillcoat's 'The Proposition' a great deal...he seems a perfect fit for this material.
yeah, i read it, and i realize that it suggests that the footage is simply a marketing ploy; problem for me is that because i also find the choices made by people running movie studios dumbfounding, there is an ineliminable kernel of cynicism at the center of my heart that expects jackassery to win the day.
i hope the footage stays out and isn't shoe-horned into the film in the eleventh hour out of a concern for the bottom line...
I hadn't watched it since it first came out on 5/14 and I have to say that I'm even more concerned after watching again. I'm more or less convinced they've changed the event that created the state the world is in so they can tie it into current hot-button issues. I'm also in agreement with you that they may have made this into an action flick. My interest drops dramatically if they did that. I really, really hope they are just playing up the action to get people in the seats because this is far from an action flick.
If this becomes an action oriented race across country, then it misses the entire point of the book, and I will stay home. I could see that film now.. it's called Mad Max.