In Konoha, we've always known that a successful mission requires a lot of preparation, and it's the same in the movie world. This is all about the "important early preparations" for a mission, or in this case, a movie.
After leaving Sophia to handle the shooting location's renovation, young Jiraiya—I mean, Gilbert—flew to Germany and Eastern Europe on a special trip to look for a Tiger tank. Unfortunately, the few remaining Tiger tanks are all museum pieces, so there was no way the crew could borrow one.
Without a Tiger tank, Gilbert had to use a backup plan. He got five old T-34 tanks, and the crew got to work on modifying them themselves. As for other American armored vehicles and Sherman tanks, there are still plenty of them in North America, and with some simple repairs, they could be used for the shoot.
Not only that, since most of the landing craft used during World War II were scrapped, the crew had to commission a local British shipbuilding company to build more than ten new landing craft for the shoot. Of course, the film has a few close-ups of warships at sea, and those will have to be handled by Industrial Light & Magic with some special effects.
But the film uses very few special effects. Young Gilbert insisted on a raw, realistic feel for the war, trying to complete the entire film using as much live action as possible. Because of this, very few scenes were shot in a studio; almost all of them were shot on location. The crew went to great lengths to achieve this authenticity.
Following Gilbert's instructions, art director Serina Hayfield and the crew's costume designer redesigned and made three thousand military uniforms for the U.S. and German armies. Serina Hayfield also found out that the company that made military boots for the U.S. military during World War II still exists, so she got in touch with them and had two thousand pairs of boots specially made. These boots and uniforms were then specially treated to look like they had been through countless battles.
Because of the many gunfight and explosion scenes, military-grade high-performance explosives had to be used, which meant the crew had to ensure the actors' safety. During the beach renovation, Gilbert, pyrotechnics expert Tony Ryder, and action director Luca Farias decided where to place the explosives and what routes the actors needed to take.
There was a funny thing that happened during all this. When Tom Hanks heard that Gilbert planned to use a stunt double, he objected.
"We worked so hard and trained with Captain Carter for a month," he said. "That was so we could be useful during the shoot. But if we use a stunt double, it defeats the whole purpose of the training."
Young Gilbert explained, "Most of the scenes will be done by you personally. Only the dangerous scenes will use a double."
But Tom Hanks clearly disagreed. "The character needs to go through the danger himself. If these dangerous scenes are done by a double, how can I feel the cruelty of war? Besides, moviegoers go to the theater to see me, not a stunt double. If a double can replace me, then why not just make the double the main character?"
What Tom Hanks said made a lot of sense, but using a stunt double was a requirement from the third-party insurance company. The insurance company obviously didn't want any actor to get hurt, especially Tom Hanks. However, Tom Hanks was so insistent that his sincerity moved Gilbert, who finally agreed to let Tom Hanks do the dangerous scenes himself without a stunt double.
Since Tom Hanks, the biggest star in the movie, was going to do it himself, the other actors, whether for pride or other reasons, couldn't bring themselves to use a stunt double and also said they wanted to do their own stunts.
This put a higher demand on the crew's safety precautions. With so many main actors doing many dangerous scenes themselves, it would be a big deal if anything went wrong. This isn't to say that the safety of stunt doubles isn't important, but compared to the main actors, it's just not as critical. For example, the crew had six stunt doubles ready for Tom Hanks, but those six doubles could only do some of the more difficult and dangerous action scenes. They couldn't replace Tom Hanks for other parts of the shoot.
This is what makes Tom Hanks irreplaceable—the drawing power of his face, his acting skills, and his charm aren't things that any actor can replace, let alone an unknown stunt double. This is clearly different from what the 'pretty boys' of a past life would do, where they had stunt doubles for both action and dialogue scenes. Young Gilbert, when he first got into the film industry, was stunned when he first heard about 'dialogue doubles.'
Perhaps it's because of this—that aside from their face and fame, the 'pretty boys' had no other irreplaceable value—that they were replaced so quickly. The sad part is that no matter who replaced them, the new one was just another 'pretty boy' who was almost no different from the last one. The truly talented actors with acting skills and irreplaceable qualities were mostly ignored.
However, in the midst of this crooked film industry, there's still a group of filmmakers who insist on making great content. This is a blessing for the Chinese film industry. You could even say that these dedicated creators have kept a spark alive for the Chinese film industry, hoping for a time when things can be set right.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with Gilbert. He's a pure-blooded Westerner and a Hollywood director now, so he's an outsider. Besides, Hollywood isn't doing so great a few decades from now either. Young Gilbert thought that maybe in the future he could get a social media account and become a friendly friend of the Chinese people. Then, he could become a commentary expert, criticizing those young stars and becoming the 'discipline inspector' of the entertainment industry. But with a different status and position, he might not even be interested in doing that when the time comes.
The film's preparations are still ongoing. The props team has put in a lot of effort, finding many tanks, armored vehicles, and troop carriers. If they couldn't find something, they would modify it themselves.
Since the film was first greenlit, the props team has been collecting and making weapons from World War II, including M1 Garand rifles, Thompson submachine guns, and bangalore torpedoes. They also prepared tens of thousands of smaller items like canteens, ammo pouches, and grenades for the crew. Not only that, because the film features other armies, the props team also found many weapons used by other countries' armies, including the MG-42 machine gun and the Mauser 98 rifle.
For this kind of film, the early preparations are extremely important and cannot be taken lightly.
What surprised Gilbert the most was that the props team actually found three Sd.Kfz. 2 tracked motorcycles. These motorcycles were 3.00 meters long, 1.00 meter wide, and 1.20 meters high, weighing 1.28 tons. They were designed to fit inside the standard Ju-52 transport planes used by the German Air Force. The driver sat in the front, and two people could sit facing backward in the boat-like body in the back.
This motorcycle was equipped with an Olympia four-cylinder liquid-cooled gasoline engine and could reach a maximum speed of 80 kilometers per hour on flat ground. However, because of the limited fuel tank capacity, its maximum range was 260 kilometers. Even so, this motorcycle was still a great vehicle for infantry, adapting to many different types of terrain. The downside was that it was expensive and had high maintenance costs, so only a few were ever made.
So, it was not easy for the props team to find these three motorcycles. When they found them, they were gathering dust in a warehouse! The owner of the warehouse said they were left behind by his grandfather and that he planned to sell them for scrap metal. The props team saw that they could be repaired and immediately bought all three.
Interestingly, Tom Hanks loves to collect old military vehicles and motorcycles. He asked if he could have the first chance to buy these three motorcycles after the filming was done. Young Gilbert waved his hand and said, "Don't even talk about buying them. You don't need to pay; the crew will give them to you as a gift." This made Tom Hanks very happy.
From the beginning of the preparations, Gilbert knew that this film was going to be quite intense. Unlike a PG-13 film like The Rock, this one would be rated at least R. In his past life, Spielberg once said that even if the film was rated NC-17, he wouldn't agree to any cuts. Thankfully, Gilbert doesn't have that problem, as the three big shots behind this film are powerful enough to ensure an R rating won't be an issue.
Of course, an R rating does have some effect on a film's box office performance. But Gilbert feels that if this film can just do as well as it did in his past life, that would be enough. Since it doesn't have to compete with Shakespeare in Love or face Harvey Weinstein's public relations in the same way, there shouldn't be any issues at the Oscars.
During the preparation for Saving Private Ryan, The Rock was finishing its run in North American theaters. The film earned $223 million in North America, a new personal box office record for Gilbert's directing career. Most importantly, new films released in the summer, like Batman Forever, Apollo 13, and Pocahontas, had no hope of surpassing The Rock's box office. Toy Story, the most promising film, was set to be released in October, and animated films have never been particularly strong at the box office; it's rare for one to earn over $200 million in North America. The Lion King was a total fluke.
The main way animated films make money has always been through merchandise, so The Rock's title as the North American box office champion for the year is pretty much a sure thing. In addition, the film did very well overseas, bringing its total to $571 million with the North American box office. While the screenings are coming to an end, there's no hope of breaking the $600 million mark, but this is a result everyone can be happy with.
With this, Gilbert is very likely to win his first North American box office champion and worldwide box office champion. It's going to be very difficult for a challenger to come along in the remaining time. It's a bit of a shame that while Gilbert has made five films in five years, he has never been the top director of the year. Only by dominating a year's box office list can Gilbert truly be compared to the top directors in Hollywood.
The Saving Private Ryan crew held a simple start-of-production ceremony in Los Angeles, where the crew members congratulated Gilbert in advance for getting his first box office championship. However, Gilbert himself has a very calm mindset. For him, any achievement is in the past; he always focuses on what he is doing now and what he will do in the future. Just sitting on your past successes and reminiscing about past glories will stop you from moving forward, and Gilbert doesn't want that.
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