BoxOffice® Pro - May 2012

SUMMER TENTPOLE > BATTLESHIP
and she has a lot of that. I met with her, and she
came into the office in flip-flops and jeans. We
had a long talk about her desire about getting in
the business. She then auditioned for a couple of
hours, improvised a lot, read different roles. She
read Liam Neeson’s character and Taylor Kitsch’s
character. I was trying to get a sense of how
adventurous she was as an actress, and she was
very. When I told her I wanted her to do it, she
said, “Okay, but don’t treat me special—make me
work,” and I said, “You got it.” She showed up to
work and really did a great job. To anyone who
is surprised that Rihanna is acting, there is a long
list of musicians that have acted successfully. My
first experience was Frank Sinatra in Manchurian
Candidate, and he won an Oscar in From Here
to Eternity. There’s Mick Jagger or David Bowie
or Mariah Carey or Lenny Kravitz or Whitney
Houston or Tim McGraw, who I had great success
with in Friday Night Lights and The Kingdom.
Musicians make great actors, and that’s just the
way it is.
YOU
LOOKING AT
ME? BROOKLYN
DECKER ON THE
SET
That’s true: They’ve got to act while they’re
singing, otherwise the song won’t resonate.
Yes. Rihanna did a wonderful job in Battleship.
There is no star treatment given to her,
and none asked for. She is a great team player
and great girl. I would work with her again in
a second.
How closely was the studio watching John
Carter to see if they were going to get a
bump from Taylor Kitsch’s role?
I don’t think the studio was really counting
on anything. Obviously, John Carter was a
disappointment financially, and there are a lot
of reasons that went into that. Taylor did a
great job in the movie, and nobody’s associated
the results of John Carter with Taylor. He
did a wonderful job. We all watch each others’
films, and as snarky as people in our business
can be, we’re not that big of a community.
We are financially interconnected. So nobody
wants to see anyone fail, especially on a film
that’s that expensive. We are our own movie,
we fully plan on having our own experience—and
hopefully a successful one—but
that has very little do with any other film’s
performance.
Are you aware that there is a big cult
of people who’d like to see a Rundown
sequel?
I know. I’m working on it. I believe that all
those people are going to be really happy with
Battleship. Battleship is more me, a return to the
tone of The Rundown. Which I love—I love
that film. It was a fun action romp. Big-ass fun
romp. Battleship has got that tone. It’s meant to
be a film for everyone: it takes itself seriously
at times, other times it wants people to have
a good, old-fashioned popcorn romp at the
movie theater. That’s what we intended to do.
WHEN
ALIENS
ATTACK
TOUGH BEAUTY
BROOKLYN DECKER WILL BE
AT THE FRONT LINES
98 BOXOFFICE PRO APRIL 2012