Shochiku and Nippon Herald will release Oliver Stone's Alexander on 300 screens on
two major theatre circuits on February 5. Giving the film dismal numbers and dire
reviews elsewhere, the Japanese distributors are understandably a bit testy. One Shochiku
flack, asked the film's relative lack of star power in the Japanese market -- Colin Farrell
has a following here, but he is certainly no Brad Pitt -- snapped that "stars don't make a
film a hit." True, in some cases, but Pitt, whose legions of Japanese fans call him simply
"Burapi," did help Troy gross nearly $40 million in Japan.
Will Alexander do a fourth as well -- i.e., enough to earn back the $10 million minimum
guarantee? The distributors are pinning their hopes of what the Shochiku rep called "the
mystery element." "Japanese know only a few surface facts about Alexander -- that he
was a conqueror, that he died young and so on. How did he do so much in such a short
time -- and why?" Japanese fans, he hopes, will be curious to know the answer.
Pre-release publicity is also focused on that old Hollywood reliable: spectacle, with
attention being paid to the size of the budget, which at Y20 billion, sounds more
impressive in Japanese, as well as the meticulous recreations of Alexander's various
battles.
In Tokyo for a press conference on January 14, Stone and Farrell looked weary and
subdued -- the former more than the latter. Stone began saying "You are an old culture --
I hope you can appreciate a movie about an old culture" then lamented that Alexander
had "started in the wrong country" and added that "we are collectively proud of our
achievement." When the first question was the inevitable "Why did you choose this
project?" he winced, then launched into a disjointed recitation of his boilerplate reply.
Farrell massaged his director's shoulders sympathetically, as though he were a old fighter,
losing on points, going into the fifteenth round.
