The Terminal

[modage]

since this is Spielbergs next official project, it needs its own thread.

Stanley Tucci Enters Spielberg's Terminal
Source: The Hollywood Reporter Thursday, July 17, 2003

Stanley Tucci will star in Steven Spielberg's Terminal at DreamWorks Pictures. Tucci joins Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Chi McBride in the film, due to begin lensing in September in Los Angeles.

Hanks stars as a Balkan immigrant who makes an airport transit lounge his home after he learns that the borders of his war-torn nation have been blurred, voiding his passport and leaving him without a country. Making friends among the airport employees in the United States, including a baggage handler (McBride), he falls in love with a flight attendant (Zeta-Jones), which prompts his escape a year later.

Tucci will play a representative from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The script was penned by Sacha Gervasi and Jeff Nathanson.

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the thought of hanks playing a foriegner, is somewhat scary.

[chainsmoking insomniac]

Indeed.  The story sounds fairly interesting, however.

[mutinyco]

I think there's more to that title than the reference to an airport...

[mutinyco]

It's an interesting idea, but there's gotta be a real hook to it. They've been preparing this one for a while. SS often shoots films back to back, but there's always one that he preapares for a longer period. He did that with Saving Private Ryan after The Lost World and Amistad. He also did that with Minority Report sandwiched between A.I. and Catch Me if You Can. It's gotta be something they really believe in.

[oakmanc234]

'Terminal' will be a great flick to look forward to. A new 'Castaway' all lined up.

[MacGuffin]

Saldana & Luna Enter Spielberg's Terminal
Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Zoe Saldana (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) and Diego Luna (Open Range) are joining stars Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones in the cast of Steven Spielberg's Terminal, which begins shooting at the end of next month in Los Angeles.

Hanks plays a Balkan immigrant who makes an airport transit lounge his home after he learns that the borders of his war-torn nation have been blurred, voiding his passport and leaving him without a country.

Making friends among the airport employees in the United States, including a baggage handler (Chi McBride), he falls in love with a flight attendant (Zeta-Jones), which prompts his escape a year later.

Saldana joins Stanley Tucci in playing representatives of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Luna will play an airport employee. The project is set up at DreamWorks.

[Find Your Magali]

Hmmm. This looks just way, way too cutesy. Especially knowing we'll get a Spielberg ending. Blech.

This could be the end of the Hanks streak (at least in terms of movie quality). First clunker since Bonfire of the Vanities. (I'm even willing -- just barely -- to give a passing grade to "You've Got Mail")

[Alethia]

Hmmm. This looks just way, way too cutesy. Especially knowing we'll get a Spielberg ending. Blech.

This could be the end of the Hanks streak (at least in terms of movie quality). First clunker since Bonfire of the Vanities. (I'm even willing -- just barely -- to give a passing grade to "You've Got Mail")

wow.  and he hasn't even started shooting yet.  my my my.......

[mutinyco]

That's a pretty stupid assessment Magali.

[mutinyco]

Waiting for Spielberg

By MATTHEW ROSE
   
Unlike most urban legends, the one about the Iranian exile stuck at the Paris airport for 15 years is true. Surrounded by a mountain of his possessions near the Paris Bye Bye lounge at Terminal 1 in Charles de Gaulle International Airport, Merhan Karimi Nasseri is still there after all these years -- a celebrity homeless person.

Planted on the 1970's red plastic bench he calls home, and surrounded by stacks of newspapers and magazines, Nasseri, also known as Alfred or ''Sir, Alfred'' (title and comma appropriated from a mistake in a letter from British immigration), has organized his life's belongings into a half-dozen Lufthansa cargo boxes, various suitcases and unused carry-on luggage. On a nearby coffee table spotted with aluminum ashtrays, Nasseri's universe includes a pair of alarm clocks, an electric shaver, a hand mirror and a collection of press clippings and photographs to establish his present and his recent past. He seems both settled -- and ready to go.  

To the pilots, airport staff, fast-food merchants and millions who have passed through the terminal on their way to somewhere else, the 58-year-old Nasseri has become a postmodern icon -- a traveler whom no one will claim. Little do they know that he is on his way to becoming a Hollywood icon, too. Inspired by Nasseri's intriguing tale of lost identity, bureaucratic limbo and persistence, Steven Spielberg has bought the rights to his life story as the basis for the new Tom Hanks vehicle, ''The Terminal.''

''I realize I am famous,'' Nasseri says in his soft, almost giggly voice, a gravelly mix of his native Persian, the airport French he's picked up from the loudspeakers and the cigarettes he's always smoking. As if to prove his fame, he pats a briefcase stuffed with his press clippings. ''I wasn't interesting until I came here.''  

Nasseri's story is difficult to piece together. Over the years, he has claimed many things about his origins. At one time his mother was Swedish, another time English. Nasseri's effectively reinvented himself in the Charles de Gaulle airport and denies these days that he's Iranian, deflecting any conversation about his childhood in Tehran. (''He pretends he doesn't speak Persian,'' his longtime lawyer, Christian Bourguet, says. ''He was interviewed by Iranian journalists and made believe he didn't understand.'') When we first met two years ago, he insisted that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was attempting to locate his parents in order to establish his identity. But a spokeswoman for the agency dismissed the assertion as ''pure folly.''  

Early on in his saga, Nasseri maintained that he was expelled from his homeland for antigovernment activity in 1977. According to a number of reports, Nasseri protested against the regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi while a student in England, and when he returned to Iran, found himself imprisoned, and shortly thereafter exiled.

He bounced around Europe for a few years with temporary refugee papers, alighting finally in Belgium, where he was awarded official refugee status in 1981. He traveled to Britain and France without difficulty until 1988, when he landed at Charles de Gaulle airport after being denied entry into Britain, because, he contends, his passport and refugee certificate were stolen in a mugging on a Paris subway. Nasseri could not prove who he was, nor offer proof of his refugee status. So he moved into the Zone d'attente, a holding area for travelers without papers.

He stayed for days, then weeks -- then months, then years. As his bizarre odyssey stretched on, Bourguet, the noted French human rights lawyer, took on the case, and the news media piled on. Articles appeared around the world, and Nasseri became the subject of three documentary films. (Oddly, apparently none of his friends or relatives have attempted to contact him.)  


Like any number of Samuel Beckett characters, Nasseri has redefined the concept of waiting. But he remains busy, and during office hours when he's not meeting filmmakers or members of the press, he collects McDonald's soda tops and endlessly considers his situation in a sprawling, 1,000-plus-page diary that chronicles his journey to nowhere. These rambling handwritten notes recount his encounters with just about everyone he's met, reporting faithfully everything from the details of his paper chase to some of the witty things he's said (''I'm not Henry Kissinger''). Nasseri also asks most visitors to sign his journal.

An effete, balding man, Nasseri is well groomed (he washes daily in the men's room and sends his donated Marks & Spencer clothes to the dry cleaners) with finely manicured fingernails. He smokes compulsively and is forever reaching for his pouch of Pall Mall rolling tobacco. At one point during our interview he coughs, adding with his characteristic sly humor, ''Maybe I caught SARS here in the airport.''

In an eerily Warholian relationship, Nasseri's closest neighbors at the airport are a photo booth and a photocopy machine. Unlike most movie types, Nasseri does not have a cell phone, and he eats regularly at the McDonald's in the food court 100 feet away. (''I like the fish,'' he says.) The only green in his immediate environment is, ironically, the Sortie (Exit) sign.

In the Spielberg film, which begins shooting this month, Hanks is transformed into a refugee whose country disappears in a diplomatic wink of an eye. As chaos ravages his homeland, Hanks is rendered stateless, his passport turned into an eBay collectible. He's grounded: a stranger in a strange New York airport. But Hanks is cured of his airport disease and soars to new heights (and, who knows, perhaps another Oscar), thanks to the Hollywood bombshell Catherine Zeta-Jones, who plays Hanks's love interest, a flight attendant. Nasseri has had no such luck with the ladies and complains that there are no nightclubs in his airport. ''There's no pleasure,'' he says.

While Bourguet confirms that Spielberg's company, DreamWorks, has in fact bought the rights to his client's life story, Spielberg himself would not discuss ''The Terminal,'' its plot nor Nasseri's contract. Marvin Levy, a DreamWorks spokesman, confirms that a financial agreement was signed. However, he cautions, ''Mr. Nasseri's story was an inspiration for the original treatment for 'The Terminal.' The film is not his story.''

Rumors of a $275,000 fee for the rights to Nasseri's life story and certain consulting duties have circulated. ''It's less than $1 million,'' Bourguet says, adding that the money hasn't changed the predicament of his client. ''While he became a bit richer, Alfred is extremely paranoid and confused.''  

Certainly, Nasseri may well be one of the only people on the planet not to have seen a Spielberg production. Asked what he thinks of Hanks, Nasseri replies straight-faced, ''Is he Japanese?''

Regardless of whether Hanks manages to capture the refugee's deadpan delivery, the Hollywood retelling of Nasseri's odyssey will undoubtedly include a first-class ticket to the American dream.

Nasseri's real-life ending, however, is still up in the air.

''Alfred himself will have trouble leaving the airport,'' says Glen Luchford, a fashion photographer cum director whose 2001 mockumentary, ''Here to Where,'' attempted just such a scenario, with the director, played by Paul Berczeller, failing to tempt Nasseri beyond the concrete gardens of Charles de Gaulle.

''Alfred has to accept that he's free,'' Luchford says sadly. ''But with freedom comes responsibility. He represents people's worst fears -- the idea they might be procrastinating all their lives and end up being rooted to the spot.''


Nasseri cannot be forcibly moved or repatriated. He is protected by a number of international refugee statutes. According to Bourguet, he is legally free to leave the airport. All Nasseri has to do is sign the identity papers the French provided him in 1999. But the papers identify him as Iranian and don't recognize his adopted name of Sir, Alfred. And so he can't -- or won't- sign them: a testament to either patience, or madness.

Nasseri is doubtful about attending the premiere of ''The Terminal,'' although his face lights up at the prospect. ''I would probably have technical problems with my papers in Los Angeles,'' he says, before adding that he'll likely leave the airport ''in September or October.''

If he does decide to finally exit the departure lounge, Nasseri could go to any number of places in the world. He says Florida has invited him, and, yes, why not New York, when ''I take over DreamWorks''? (The company is based in California.) And what of the plastic red bench, which has served as his de facto home for the last 15 years and must by now be a collector's item?

''I'll take it to DreamWorks,'' he says with a smile. ''And send it by FedEx.''

[Find Your Magali]

How ironic: The compassionate French are letting this poor Nasseri fellow live for 15 years in their airport, something you would NEVER see in an American airport. ... So what does the American filmmaker do? Use the tale as the inspiration for a story relocated to an American airport with (according to the casting call) a snooty French official as one of the bad guys.

[Ghostboy]

I think the movie has potential, maybe, but why cast Tom Hanks? There are a great number of wonderful middle eastern actors who would make the film boundlessly more interesting and who would save us from Hanks putting on an accent (maybe he'll do a good job, but he'll still seem silly). Furthermore, it would be a lot cooler to see one of these actors oppposite someone like Zeta Jones.

[Find Your Magali]

I think the movie has potential, maybe, but why cast Tom Hanks? There are a great number of wonderful middle eastern actors who would make the film boundlessly more interesting and who would save us from Hanks putting on an accent (maybe he'll do a good job, but he'll still seem silly). Furthermore, it would be a lot cooler to see one of these actors oppposite someone like Zeta Jones.

Because I bet they're going to make him a Serb or Croat, rather someone of Middle Eastern descent. ... I think they're just going to make up the country he comes from, too, from what I've read.

Maybe he'll be from Hanksylvania.

[mutinyco]

Yeah, he's supposed to be from the Balkans. The movie is going to be a movie. It was just inspired by this guy's situation. But he certainly has enough money now to bribe his way out of France...

[MacGuffin]

DreamWorks' The Terminal is Ready for Boarding
Source: DreamWorks Pictures

Principal photography is underway on DreamWorks Pictures' The Terminal, under the direction of Steven Spielberg. The film stars Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Stanley Tucci.

The film is being produced by Spielberg, Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald from a screenplay by Sacha Gervasi and Jeff Nathanson from a story by Andrew Niccol. Patricia Whitcher, Jason Hoffs and Niccol are serving as executive producers.

Filming began on The Terminal on October 1 in Los Angeles. The majority of the movie's interiors will be shot on a two-and-a-half story recreation of a full-size operating terminal, which has been constructed in an enormous hanger located at Palmdale's famed "aerospace alley," north of Los Angeles. Filming will be completed on location in Montreal.

The Terminal tells the story of Viktor Navorski (Hanks), a visitor to New York from Eastern Europe, whose homeland erupts in a fiery coup while he is in the air en route to America. Stranded at Kennedy Airport with a passport from nowhere, he is unauthorized to actually enter the United States and must improvise his days and nights in the terminal's international transit lounge until the war at home is over.

As the weeks and months stretch on, Viktor finds the compressed universe of the terminal to be a richly complex world of absurdity, generosity, ambition, amusement, status, serendipity and even romance with a beautiful flight attendant named Amelia (Zeta-Jones). But Viktor has long worn out his welcome with airport official Frank Dixon (Tucci), who considers him a bureaucratic glitch, a problem he cannot control but wants desperately to erase.

During his accidental exile, Viktor encounters and befriends an array of airport employees, some of whom aren't very far removed from their own assimilation to America.

The supporting cast includes Chi McBride, Diego Luna, Barry "Shabaka" Henley, Kumar Pallana, Zoe Saldana, Eddie Jones and Jude Ciccolella.