Update: Reps for Universal clarify that upcoming shooting in Hawaii, Baton Rouge and San Diego has always been part of the production schedule. Meanwhile, Brooklyn Decker has taken to Twitter to confirm spring filming was always the plan and there are no alternate endings being shot, revealing that she is “still learning to speak Hollywood.”
Welcome to the new era in filmmaking. Story, scripts, not even test audiences matter anymore. It seems like all studios do is scatter a bunch of random footage together to somehow fit together into a film, with the expectations that some reshoots will happen later to give the filmmaker (or rather, one finicky business major-turned-exec) “options.” Such is the case with 2012’s big alien invasion tentpole “Battleship.” No, we can’t believe we’re typing that either.
Speaking to Moviehole, model-turned-actress Brooklyn Decker confirmed that there could be quite a few different interpretations for the action in “Battleship.” “We will do reshoots,” she confirms. “We have shot a bunch of alternate endings. There’s a lot of CGI to be done – a lot of stuff in post.” When further asked about the reshoots, Decker said, “Yes, depending on the storyline and where they want to take it we might be doing some reshoots.” It’s good that they’ll be figuring out the storyline after they’ve already shot quite a bit of footage. Usually that part emerges from something called a screenplay, something that is usually written months prior. Robert McKee thinks highly of these.
The problem with these CG-intensive movies is that you really need to have the film in place and leave precious room for improvisation, since the computer technicians in charge of the special effects need to know what they’ll be animating far in advance. So a film with multiple endings (only one of which we presume will be used – this isn’t “Return of the King“) likely requires a whole lot of CGI muscle. No wonder the budget is approaching $200 million. But don’t worry – Decker claims that this alien movie based on a board game “feels gritty and real.” Because when we think “gritty” and “real” we think of “Battleship.”
