Don’t you just love it when a few months before the release, you find out online that your favorite book, comic book hero, or video game has been adapted for film? And don’t you just love it when 3 weeks before the movie hits the screen; you are bombarded with 6 different movie trailers on the same movie revealing not only the plot but, all the best action scenes, a hint to what the ending is, and countless blogs giving away the whole movie? Bueller? Bueller? No one wants to see a movie that is totally ruined by leaks and lengthy trailers.
So what sets aside “those” movies from those highly anticipated summer blockbusters or Christmas Day openings? In almost all cases this can be accredited to the director. Not to forget that actors and the crew play a massive role as well.
Christopher Nolan, writer and director of the recently concluded Dark Knight trilogy and Inception, has a veil of secrecy to just about every movie he has worked on. Of course, keeping the script under lock and key is step one. When offering the role of Alfred to Michael Caine, Nolan never left the side of Caine as he read the script to Batman Begins and quickly confiscated the script upon completion.
Nolan even went to the extent of not telling the actors what they would be doing during the scene filmed that day. Liam Neeson complained to the associated press that for his cameo appearance in The Dark Knight Rises, he was not given a single clue about anything in the scene. Even Anne Hathaway, who played Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises, was under the impression that she was playing Harley Quinn up until two months before filming.
Christopher Nolan’s extent of secrecy has proven to be a determining factor in how well his movies do at the box office. Maybe all this secrecy isn’t such a bad thing at all. It makes for an enjoyable night of anticipation before watching a movie and simply just works. No matter the premise for Nolan’s next film, I hope he treats it with the same amount of secrecy as his previous films to keep up us all nervous with anticipation until its opening. Nolan’s element of surprise makes for an utmost thrill while viewing his films.
