 ON STAGE: Justin Bieber performs in "Never Say Never," |
For decades, whenever a music or movie star popular with teenagers burst onto the scene, his or her rise to fame would be chronicled within months via what's known in the publishing industry as an "insta-book."On Friday comes the "insta-movie." "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never," part 3-D concert film and part glossy biography of the 16-year-old pop star, was conceived, produced, edited, marketed and released in little more than six months. That's a time frame virtually unheard of in notoriously slow-moving Hollywood, where movies typically take years to gestate.
Hatched by a division of Paramount Pictures focused on bypassing the lengthy development process and produced by the duo behind the reality show "Top Chef," the Bieber movie mixes cutting-edge, digital 3-D photography with grainy home movies and reality-show-style documentary footage to create a flattering portrait of the singer and his rise from small-town Canada to international stardom.The resulting concoction is not only an attempt to cash in on a potentially short-lived phenomenon, but a model for hidebound movie studios to participate in a new media world in which fans create the popular culture as much as they consume it."Justin Bieber is a sensation created by fans on the Internet and we have to challenge ourselves to be relevant to that," said Paramount film group President Adam Goodman. "There's a place for the way we have done things for years, but with digital technology, we have the opportunity to move at lightning speed."The Ontario native was discovered by manager Scooter Braun in 2008 from videos Bieber's mother posted on YouTube. Aggressive promotion on radio stations and social networks soon spread "Bieber Fever" to a rabid fan base that has bought 4.6 million of his albums. Last year, he was the No. 4 bestselling musical artist according to Billboard and the No. 3 most popular in concert, according to Pollstar.Indeed, a movie is just about the only thing that the Bieber machine hasn't touched yet. He's already launched a merchandising and licensing bonanza with everything from watches to T-shirts, had a guest spot on "CSI," published his autobiography and is getting ready for a global concert tour. "Never Say Never" opens amid a barrage of both old-school and new-wave publicity. Bieber has appeared on MTV, "Saturday Night Live" and "The Daily Show," and stoked up his 7 million-plus Twitter followers (sample: "kinda crazy ... next week at this time #NEVERSAYNEVER3D will be in Theatres ... and u will finally see who I really am").People who have seen pre-release surveys say it's impossible to predict how the $13-million budget movie will perform at the box office because Bieber's fan base of teen and pre-teen girls is small but fervent. The 3D concert movie "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds" surprised many in 2008 when it opened to $31 million. But the similar "Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience" debuted to just $12.5 million the next year."Our normal ways of measuring are not reliable when you're dealing with a fan base that's an inch wide and a mile deep," said Jim Gallagher, a consultant who previously was president of marketing for Disney, who worked on both the Cyrus and Jonas Brothers films when he was at the studio. "Never Say Never" could potentially be bigger than those movies because of the growing prevalence of 3-D (and the accompanying ticket price surcharge).About 2,500 of its 3,000 theaters this weekend will be 3-D, compared with 683 for "Best of Both Worlds" and 1,271 for "Jonas." The idea for a Bieber movie came from Paramount Insurge, a division of the studio formed in the wake of the 2009 low-budget blockbuster "Paranormal Activity" to search for other unlikely and inexpensive projects, particularly those that germinate online.Insurge staffers proposed a movie about Bieber last June and by the end of that month, a group of Paramount executives including Goodman and vice chairman Rob Moore were at his Minneapolis tour stop to pitch the idea. But save for a few words as Bieber whizzed past the Hollywood executives on his Segway, they never had the opportunity to meet the singer or his entourage."I was told they just wanted to see the show with their kids, so I said 'Sure, give them tickets,' " Braun later recalled, explaining how the movie big shots were initially ignored. Nonetheless, the Paramount executives were sufficiently impressed by Bieber's performance — and his fans' hysteria — to later meet in Los Angeles with Braun, who already was mulling a direct-to-DVD movie.
For more details go to Los Angeles Times February 10, 2011
