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History, Celebrity Commingle for `Pearl Harbor' Movie Premier
Disney has transformed a Navy aircraft carrier into a mammoth moviehouse for the launch of its summer blockbuster, ``Pearl Harbor."
Hollywood stars, military brass and World War II veterans will be among 2,000 guests at Monday night's premier on the flight deck of the USS John C. Stennis at Pearl Harbor. The movie opens in theaters Friday.
The dlrs 5 million premier party promises to match the extravagance of the dlrs 140 million film, starring Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale and Josh Hartnett with what producer Jerry Bruckheimer said will be ``one of the biggest fireworks displays ever." The Stennis is moored a few hundred yards (meters) from ground zero of the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack that drew the United States into World War II. The ship is opposite the memorial for some 900 crew of the USS Arizona who went down with the battleship in the first 30 minutes of the surprise attack.
Also nearby is the USS Missouri battleship, on whose deck Japan signed surrender documents in 1945.
The Stennis' 4.5-acre (1.8-hectare) flight deck has been transformed into an open-air theater with stadium seating.
A vintage B-25 bomber and a P-40 fighter are displayed on the deck of the 97,000-ton carrier, amid rolls of red carpet and white party tents.
The movie directed by Michael Bay tells the story of the attack through the lives of two fighter pilots from Tennessee (Affleck and Hartnett) who fall in love with the same nurse (Beckinsale).
``It's a love story that gets entangled into a war story," said Bay, whose earlier collaborations with Bruckheimer include ``Armageddon"' and ``The Rock".
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