The author of the book Friday Night Lights is a vocal Mitt Romney fan, and at recent campaign appearances the Republican presidential candidate has been using the inspirational phrase from the TV adaptation: “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.”
But that expression isn’t in the book, and Peter Berg, who directed and co-wrote the screenplay for the 2004 movie, and went on to create the 2006-2011 TV series, has released a scathing letter to Romney, telling him to cut it out.
Image Credit: Frank Masi
It’s rare that Peter Berg looks nervous. The actor-turned-director has a habit of putting other people on edge, like that poor Israeli reporter who recently admitted to Berg that he hadn’t yet signed up for the country’s mandatory military service. Or the day when Berg, during what I expected to be a simple 20-minute phoner, ordered me down to his Santa Monica office to watch the first 50 minutes of his $200 million Battleship.
After the screening, though, Berg indeed looked nervous. He was most concerned about conveying two things: One, his movie isn’t a total Transformers rip-off. (It isn’t; read Lisa Schwarzbaum’s B+ review here.) And two, Rihanna can act.
“What did you think of her, what you saw of her?” he asked, fidgeting in his seat. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: ILM/Universal Pictures
When mounting a production as gargantuan as Battleship — Universal’s $200 million-plus maritime alien invasion spectacular — it helps to seek out as much advice as possible. Fortunately for director Peter Berg, one of the foremost experts on making mega-budget Hollywood productions on the open ocean came to him. Two months before Berg, Taylor Kitsch, Rihanna, and the rest of the film’s cast and crew set out to shoot on the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Hawaii, the Hancock director says he got an unsolicited phone call from none other than Kevin Costner.
That’s right: The star of the notorious 1995 flop Waterworld had a few things to get off his chest about shooting a movie on the briny sea. (Costner was unavailable to comment for this story.) Check out his advice as Berg recalls it below: READ FULL STORY »
We here at EW.com have not been shy about our half-serious fascination with Battleship, the overcaffeinated elevator pitch which magically transformed into an actual movie about beautiful people joining the navy to fight submarine alien robots in Hawaii. The film is based on a beloved preschool boardgame, whose elaborate mythology includes boats that blow up real good and the questionable assertion that a patrol boat is 2/5 the size of an aircraft carrier. The first trailers for Battleship basically just added in falling skyscrapers, the aforementioned alien robots, and also Brooklyn Decker, herself a rumored alien robot.
But a new featurette including interviews with Taylor Kitsch, Rihanna, and director Peter Berg attempts to cast some light on the movie’s complicated plot. Watch it below.
