Back from the Charlie press junket
This weekend, I travelled to The Bahamas for the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory press junket. For those who aren’t familiar with the term, a press junket is a two or three day period during which the stars and filmmakers of a movie meet with the press (both domestic and international) to answer questions about the film. Since most of the U.S. media is based in New York or Los Angeles, press junkets are usually in one of these two cities.
Which begs the question, why the hell was the press junket in The Bahamas?
Answer: Johnny Depp. He’s currently shooting the sequels to Pirates of the Caribbean down there, and since he’s The Guy on the Poster, Warner Bros. decided to fly everyone to The Bahamas so he could participate.
The event itself was at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island. I’d never been to the Caribbean, but I’ve been to Vegas plenty of times, so here’s my best analogy. Take The Luxor, exchange the Egyptian theme for a vaguely Mayan one, add in Mandalay Bay’s shark tanks, and put the whole thing on a pretty beach. It’s only an hour-and-a-half from Florida, so that’s your target audience.
I ended up spending a whopping 20 hours in the country, so I don’t feel qualified to comment on anything about The Bahamas beyond the fact that everyone I met was friendly.
As for the press junket itself, my job was to sit next to producer Richard Zanuck and answer questions from three different groups of journalists, all of whom had just seen the movie at a special screening. Then I did an on-camera interview for a VH-1 special.
In all, I travelled about 18 hours for less than three hours of actual work. Was it worth it?
Hard to say. I honestly don’t know if a single quote of mine will appear in any of the stories about Charlie. I try to say honest and witty things, but given a choice between me and Mr. Depp, a reporter will always use his quotes. I knew that going in. And for most of the longer stories about the movie, I do in-person or phone interviews, which are most easily done from Los Angeles.
However, I think it’s important that the screenwriter show up for junkets. My being there hopefully reminds journalists that the movie was written before it was shot. Far too often in the entertainment press, the only mention of the screenwriter is to lambaste a (supposedly) dreadful script; in success, we’re invisible. At least for a few sweaty hours in The Bahamas, I was part of the story.
Articles
June 28th, 2005 at 4:13 pm
John, thanks for sharing this experience with us. Flying everyone to The Bahamas for just one guy sounds so Hollywoodish from here. But heck, it’s Johnny! I can’t wait till a couple of weeks to see Charlie on the big screen!
June 28th, 2005 at 6:52 pm
Cool. Can you tell us the name of the VH1 special?
June 28th, 2005 at 8:02 pm
I think the VH-1 special will be something like, “10 Things You Didn’t Know about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” I’m pretty sure about the “10 Things” part.
June 28th, 2005 at 8:07 pm
Now the most important question:
Did you see Keira Knightley on the beach?
June 29th, 2005 at 3:35 am
Glad to know they were able to include you in the proceedings. Writing has become to me one of the biggest things I look for in a film. In my younger days, it was the visual effects. Nowadays, I want to see a film for the writing, which normally means I enjoy films that are not likely to garner budgets past $30 million.
Btw, have you ever seen the Futurama episode called ‘That’s Lobstertainment?’ There was a pretty funny joke taking place at the Oscars in that episode, where by the year 3000, the OScars now has over 400 categories-
Dr Zoidberg: What category are they on now?
Bender: They’re giving out the minor technical awards-I think they’re up to ‘writing.’
June 29th, 2005 at 5:25 am
Did you work with Depp in the writing process at all? Did he discuss things with you in shaping his performance? Or was this the first time you were able to cross paths with Mr Depp (just curious)
June 29th, 2005 at 6:10 am
I met with Johnny before we started filming, both with Tim and without. As is his reputation, he’s really smart, friendly and dedicated.
Almost every movie has a table reading, where all the actors sit around a big table and read through the whole script aloud. For Charlie, that was a very big table — there are a lot of speaking parts. After that, Johnny and I sat down and looked at a few scenes for which he had suggestions. For instance, he wanted Wonka to have all of his canned speeches memorized, but then to mess them up — which works really well in the movie. He even found some more Roald Dahl lines to include that I hadn’t used.
June 29th, 2005 at 6:40 am
John:
At these press junkets, how in the world do you NOT say the same thing over and over again. When I had to do press in Sundance for the Woodsman, I got really silly after the 1st couple. I do believe they didn’t use a single quote.
June 29th, 2005 at 8:33 am
John:
Were you paid for your time on the junket? Was that something built into your contract?
The buzz for the movie is starting to grow in my corner of the east coast. And the advertising is turning kids’ heads. I suspect this will be big.
Thanks for the insider’s view.
June 29th, 2005 at 9:12 am
John,
Guess you wer ebeing prophetic. I read an article on the junket over at movieweb and sure enough, you were mentioned but no real quotables. You did get a whole paragraph though:
“John August the screenwriter and Dick Zanuck brought a more technical aspect to this afternoon of interviews. August spoke about “the love” in Charlie Bucket’s home, and that the challenge of the screenwriter is “knowing when to stop”. Working with someone like Tim Burton, whose mastery of the craft could bring almost any idea to life, August said that he “wrote for Tim” but he was mainly focused on giving him “what he needed” to make the film. August also said that Burton was very predisposed to not making this movie “contemporary”. He also said that his first image of this movie (when he started writing the script), was the end shot of the Bucket home beside the chocolate river. He said the only character he came on board knowing he was going to be writing for was Johnny Depp, and at first Johnny Depp was supposed to play Willy Wonka and Wonka’s father. When asked if he thought this movie might be too scary for the young audience that will be seeing it, August said that he didn’t think so and that “rotten things happen to rotten kids, and I think people are okay with that.” August is currently working on a Tarzan movie. He says the script is good but they still need a director. He’s also going to be producing a Prince of Persia movie based on the popular video game, and that it’s the first project he’s worked on that he hasn’t written.”
June 29th, 2005 at 2:48 pm
John, You’re being too hard on yourself. I was at the junket in one of those very interview sessions and you handled yourself quite well. I found your’s and Dick’s session to be just as fun and informative as Tim’s and Johnny’s (poor Freddie seemed scared out of his mind). I think Dick might’ve nodded off at one point though. I’ll be using plenty of your quotes in my CHARLIE article.
June 29th, 2005 at 7:56 pm
The VH1 show is called “10 Most Excellent Things: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. It will show on the 13th and 14th of July (check your local listings for times).
I can’t wait to see it!
Joy
July 6th, 2005 at 11:04 am
July 6th, 2005 at 11:11 am
Oops. Meant to qoute John’s article, “Which begs the question, why the hell was the press junket in The Bahamas?”
February 4th, 2006 at 9:56 am
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