By Brian Truitt, USA TODAY
It's hard to imagine Steven Spielberg conversing with movie fans on Facebook. Or George Lucas blogging his latest thoughts about the next Star Wars or Indiana Jones adventure.
By Jonathan Wenk, Summit Entertainment
Director Duncan Jones chats with his Source Code star, Jake Gyllenhaal, between takes on the train set.
By Jonathan Wenk, Summit Entertainment
Director Duncan Jones chats with his Source Code star, Jake Gyllenhaal, between takes on the train set.
Think of those filmmakers and the first thing that comes to mind is them in isolation in an editing bay somewhere, not engaging with their people. Yet here is sci-fi "it" director Duncan Jones, using Twitter and other social media to share his thoughts about pop culture and talk with fans of his breakthrough film Moon and Source Code, his new sci-fi action vehicle out Friday.
This revolution won't be televised. It'll be Tumblr'd.
"I'm aware of the implications of the new, very communicative and up-to-speed world we live in now," Jones says. "It's very difficult to keep surprises and to work in the way that films have done in the past.
"I'm still working out the best approach when it comes to marketing and things like that."
The 39-year-old filmmaking son of British rocker David Bowie, Jones became arguably the Internet's favorite director following Moon, the 2009 man-alone-in-space sci-fi film starring Sam Rockwell that Jones wrote and directed on an indie budget. The flick became a success through cyber-word of mouth, he says, and credits it for the making of Source Code.
Famous fan Jake Gyllenhaal wanted to work with Jones and sent him Ben Ripley's script for Source Code, an action thriller with sci-fi elements about a former Army helicopter pilot who has to re-live the same eight minutes over and over again in the body of an unknown man until he can somehow stop a train from exploding in suburban Chicago.
"When you see somebody with that kind of talent, your first inclination is 'I just want to be a part of whatever their mind is exploring,' " says Gyllenhaal, who under Jones' direction plays soldier Colter Stevens as part Cary Grant, part Indiana Jones.
As much as his films delve into futuristic themes, Jones grounds himself a little in the past. Moon has a similar vibe to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Source Code is Hitchcockian for Jones in that "it's got mysterious dames on a train and this guy who finds himself in completely crazy circumstances and has to solve the mystery of it."
His love of sci-fi originated as a kid growing up in England in the same household as his dad. After all, Bowie is the man who unleashed his spacey alter ego Ziggy Stardust upon unsuspecting '70s pop culture a year after Jones was born.
"I had a fairly unusual upbringing," Jones says, laughing. "My dad really thought it was incredibly important that I read. I used to spend an hour or two a night reading ? that was the rule at home. As a kid, sometimes I'd get frustrated with it and I wouldn't want to do it, and one of the ways my dad would lure me back into it was with science-fiction books, which were almost like candy.
"I watched some amazing films because of my dad's love of science fiction," Jones adds. "And his enthusiasm for it certainly translated to me. The fact that he was a huge fan of (Stanley) Kubrick's 2001 meant that as early as possible he was showing it to me because he loved it and he wanted his son to know about it."
Jones' enthusiasm really struck Gyllenhaal, as well as a Zen-like on-set demeanor that reminded the actor of Ang Lee (who directed Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain) and a visual sense and precision similar to David Fincher (Zodiac).
"But where he sets himself apart is he feels like he's of a younger generation," Gyllenhaal says. "He's totally open, particularly creatively, and he considers the sharing of his journey. He's incredibly humble as to how things have come to him."
Over the past month, Jones has been chronicling his cross-country Source Code press tour on a Tumblr blog with his girlfriend, Rodene Ronquillo. And he tweets frequently, about everything from role-playing video games to the Captain America movie trailer.
"Some filmmakers like to distance themselves from the audience, but Duncan is of the generation that uses the Internet. He has decided not to hide in the shadows," says Peter Sciretta, creator and editor of the website Slashfilm.com. "By putting himself out there and making himself accessible to fans, he has further endeared himself to the film-watching community."
Jones is planning on using cyberspace even more to his advantage, as a way of sharing information with fans about his upcoming third film. He's writing it now and will only tease that it's another sci-fi movie. (After that, Jones envisions doing a World War II guys-on-a-mission film, a la Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.)
"If you take that into the planning stages, you can generate content that will sate that insatiable hunger for information and at the same time protect the movie itself," Jones says. "So when people go to see the movie for the first time, they get that old-fashioned experience of knowing nothing about it but being very excited to actually see it."
Because he's eschewed the "Wizard of Oz aspect" that a lot of directors have about their process, Gyllenhaal says he considers Jones as much the star of Source Code as he is.
"It's a really nice feeling when fans go in and say, 'I know Duncan Jones because I follow him on Twitter' or 'I watched his crazy press journey on Tumblr,' " Gyllenhaal says. "You're actually connected to the person who shaped and sculpted and designed a film. It's a rare thing."
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