Iron Giant Walks Web
by Michael Stroud -
3:00 a.m. 31.Jul.99.PDT
To the
delight of tech-fantasy movie fans, Warner Bros. released a 10-minute segment of its
animated film The Iron Giant. But it won't be in usual trailer form -- this preview is via
the World Wide Web. Director Brad Bird selected his favorite scenes for the
cybercast. The film will also screen in limited release on Sunday before it opens
nationwide on 8 August. The cybercast may be the first example of a major studio release
airing on the Internet prior to its general release in theaters.
The Iron Giant has attracted a big
following from among Internet movie fans at dozens of sites in recent months, ranging from
The Reel Site to Rotten Tomatoes. Some have christened it the
first hapless-alien film to hold a candle to E.T.
"This is the first film I have seen that has honestly learned everything
you should take from E.T. ... but then improved on every single point," said reviewer Harry Knowles.
Warner Bros. is thrusting the film into a summer glutted with product -- 14
titles will be released in the first week of August alone. It will have a tough time
measuring up to Disney's Tarzan, which has raked in US$155.3 million since it opened on 15
June.
Still, The Iron Giant is likely to be at least a moderate success for Warner
Bros., which has seen a string of animated efforts (The King and I, Camelot) tank at the
box office.
That's good news for other studios trying to break Disney's stranglehold on the
animation business.
"I don't know any studio in town that isn't rooting for this film, except
perhaps Disney," said Robert Bucksbaum, president of movie market researcher Reel
Source.
The key question for the film is whether it will grab the imagination of those
who aren't Internet-savvy or attracted to Pokemon games.
Don Buckley, senior vice president of theatrical marketing and new media at
Warner Bros., isn't worried.
"When I saw this movie, I saw it with a bunch of adults between 22 and 40.
There wasn't a dry eye in the house when I left," he said. "This is a
movie that you can take a date, you can take your kids to. It doesn't matter."
The giant, who is predictably set upon by the military and others who don't
understand his potential for good, could be seen as a parable about the right and wrong
uses of technology, Buckley said.
Set in 1957, at the height of the Cold War, the story is designed to resonate
with a generation that wondered whether it would be blown to smithereens by an atomic
bomb.
"The giant is capable of wonderful, whimsical behavior, but when provoked,
when attacked, it's capable of quite the opposite," Buckley said.
In cybercasting a chunk of The Iron Giant, Warner Bros. is betting that any
potential piracy that occurs will be more than counterbalanced by the buzz the broadcast
will inevitably create.
The attitude stands in contrast to Lucasfilm's previews of The Phantom Menace,
which carefully avoided cybercasting more than a trailer for the film.
