SUBMITTED BY Scooby
December 7, 2001 — Variety reports from the premiere:
If the Christmas movie season needed an explosive kickoff, it got one Wednesday with the Warner Bros. premiere of ``Ocean's Eleven'' at the Village and Bruin theaters in Westwood.
Crowding nearby streets, enthusiastic (some might say ``Day of the Locust''-like) fans went wild as stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts trod the red carpet past 60 television crews. AOL Time Warner chairman Steve Case said the scene reminded him ``of a Hollywood-of-the-golden-era premiere.''
The premiere also boasted the largest gathering of industry heavy-hitters in recent memory. Seat fillers included Miramax's Harvey Weinstein, MGM owner Kirk Kerkorian, producer Joe Roth, Yahoo CEO Terry Semel, Paramount's Rob Friedman, talent agent Jeff Berg and DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg, who said attendance at ``Ocean's'' meant ``being at the coolest place in town.'' Talent agent Bryan Lourd said, ``It's like the prom -- you have to have a date.''
Ticket demand was so high that producer Jerry Weintraub said he'd gotten 150 calls on Wednesday alone asking for tix. ``I hid all day,'' he said.
Post-screening, Weinstein praised the Vegas heist pic as ``the best movie I've seen so far this year. It looks easy to make a film like that, but it ain't. Brilliant.''
Roth said, ``This guy (director Steven Soderbergh) has great style. A lesser director would have tried to explain everything, but he breezes right through it.''
Check out more at the link below.
|
