Christian Bale

by Harrison Cheung

  The Flowers of War, a big wartime drama about the Rape of Nanking Massacre during World War II, earned both Christian and Zang negative reviews. On one hand, it was the most expensive Chinese movie ever made, with a reported budget of US$100 million. The shoot took over six months, with a part of Beijing used to look like wartime Nanjing. Christian enjoyed the shoot, telling the Los Angeles Times that “one of the things he liked about shooting so far away is the relative anonymity, not to mention the remove from Hollywood.” It was also one of the top grossing films in China, earning $83 million in its first 17 days of release.

  On the other hand, The Flowers of War earned a Golden Broom nomination for Worst Picture. The Golden Broom is China’s equivalent of the Razzie Award. Some movie critics decided that Christian was miscast and that Zang had made a big-screen spectacle out of a war tragedy. The reviews were not kind.

  “Zhang Yimou, one of China’s best-known filmmakers, deserves a great big lump of coal in his holiday stocking thanks to his ludicrous soap opera The Flowers of War.”

  —New York Post

  “If Warner Bros. had made a film with this plot back in 1942, it would have made effective anti-Japanese propaganda and probably absorbing drama in the bargain. Today it just plays like hokum.”

  —The Hollywood Reporter

  “With The Flowers of War, Zhang mostly just proves that there’s no tragedy too terrible that it can’t be turned into an operatic pageant—human suffering reduced to visual showmanship.”

  —Village Voice

  The Flowers of War was China’s biggest film production, ready to open on 8,000 screens on December 13, 2011—the anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre—and backed by a nationwide promotion campaign. Its script had to be approved by government censors. It was China’s submission for an Academy Award nomination, with the hopes to win China’s very first Oscar. On Sunday, December 11, the film premiered in Beijing in a government building called The People’s Political Consultative Conference. Little wonder that at the Beijing premiere, Christian seemed annoyed when asked whether he had made a propaganda movie for the Chinese government. “I think that would be a bit of a knee-jerk reaction,” he said. “I don’t think they’re looking closely enough at the movie.”

  A few days after the Beijing premiere, Christian and a CNN news crew drove out to meet with Chinese dissident Chen Guangchen, but were stopped and shoved back by security guards blocking the road to his village. Chen is a blind lawyer who has become a cause célèbre as he’s taken up the cases of women in China who have been victims of its aggressive one-child policy that includes mandatory sterilizations and abortions. As Christian and the CNN crew drove back, he said, “I’m not being brave doing this. The local people who are standing up to the authorities and insisting on going to visit Chen and his family and getting beaten up for it and my understanding is getting detained for it, I want to support what they’re doing.”

  CNN declared, “Actor Christian Bale, CNN crew roughed up trying to visit Chinese activist” and featured the video of the incident on the front of its Web site as well as on the CNN network. However, some were amused at what cynically looked like a publicity stunt—whether by Christian to distance himself from The Flowers of War—or by CNN to use a celebrity to run a blockade. After all, Christian is not known for any Angelina Jolie-style political activism.

  Adam Minter, of Bloomberg in Shanghai, tweeted, “News orgs that want to maintain their credibility in China don’t set up confrontations between cops and celebrities, at celebrity request.” Shaun Rein, of Forbes, wrote, “Shame on CNN for its Christian Bale stunt. CNN’s China team, in a complete failure of journalistic integrity, decided last week to become the news rather than just report it.”

  In China, the incident was partially censored from the Internet—CNN’s video of the incident was blocked—but as an Internet meme, it was portrayed on China’s social networks as PandaMan versus Batman. “Batman couldn’t do it alone,” tweeted a Chinese commentator on Sina Weibo, a Chinese social network. “But if he takes Spiderman, Superman, the Hulk, Wolverine, Captain America, and Harry Potter, they can get it done, right?”

  The Chinese government criticized Christian for the incident. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said that Christian “was not invited to create a story or shoot film in a certain village.” Liu continued, “I think if you want to make up news in China, you will not be welcome here.”

  However, Hollywood insiders considered the incident a major public relations nightmare for China and its very expensive bid for an Oscar, for its hopes for a big box office hit in the U.S., as well as for Christian’s prospects of ever shooting in the Middle Kingdom ever again.

  Additionally, whether it was because of the film’s subject matter, Christian’s CNN incident, or poor reviews, The Flowers of War bombed in the U.S. market, earning just $1,619 per location in limited release in December. The Wrap declared, “Christian Bale couldn’t entice U.S. moviegoers to go see Flowers of War, the most expensive movie in Chinese history. Nor could director Zhang Yimou of Hero fame.”

  (On January 24, 2012, the Oscar nominations were announced. The Flowers of War was China’s official submission for a 2012 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, but it failed to earn an Oscar nomination.)

  But before all of that happened, back when Christian had just started filming Flowers of War, he was already thinking ahead. He was transforming his body, knowing that he’d have to bulk up again for his role in the third Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises.

  Christian initially signed up for three Batman movies before he’d even made Batman Begins as Warner Bros. was banking on the movies being a smash success. Jonathan Nolan revealed in March 2010: “Will we do a third movie? It’s got to be the right story. You can’t make something like The Dark Knight and then come out with something disappointing. The fact is I have to! I’ve signed up! Chris doesn’t. So I’m in a bit of a fix if he says he doesn’t want to!”

  As he spoke those words, Jonathan Nolan was already working furiously on a script with Christopher who hates giving away any spoilers, simply revealing: “My brother is writing a script for me and we’ll wait to see how it turns. He’s struggling to put it together into the epic story that you want it to be! Without getting into specifics, the key thing that makes the third film a great possibility for us is that we want to finish the story. And in viewing it as the finishing of a story rather than an infinitely blowing up the balloon and expanding the story. We have a great ensemble, that’s one of the attractions of doing another film, since we’ve been having a great time for years.”

  The challenge for Nolan then would be to find a villain, or villains, who not only matches up to Christian’s Batman portrayal, but matches up to that of The Joker by the incomparable Heath Ledger. Fans had been hitting the Internet for months, ever since it was confirmed there would be a third film and had been pushing their own favorite villians to take on the Caped Crusader. Many fans wanted Johnny Depp as The Riddler or Angelina Jolie as Catwoman or even Phillip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin. But Nolan had dozens of villains to choose from and remained tight-lipped on which one, and even which A-list star, he wanted in The Dark Knight Rises. All he said as casting began, with a wry smile, was: “It won’t be Mr. Freeze.”

  By April 2011 the cast was confirmed. Anne Hathaway would play Catwoman and British actor Tom Hardy would be Bane, considered one of Batman’s most deadly and powerful foes. Bane’s strength is matched only by his superior IQ and in the graphic novels, he is one of the few villains who was able to deduce Batman’s identity within a year.

  And Hardy’s Inception costar Joseph Gordon-Levitt was cast as Alberto Falcone, the son of mob boss and major Batman Begins villain Carmine Falcone, who was played by Tom Wilkinson. Oscar winner Marion Cotillard (Inception, La Vie en Rose) was cast as Miranda Tate, a Wayne Enterprises board member eager to help a still-grieving Bruce Wayne resume his father’s philanthropic endeavours for Gotham.

  Fans of Batman
were also delighted with the news that David S. Goyer was involved with the script. Goyer has a huge comic book, graphic novel, and superhero background and has been involved in both previous Batman movies, providing the story for both and cowriting the screenplay for Batman Begins. He also wrote and directed the hugely popular Blade vampire movies starring Wesley Snipes as well as Crow: City of Angels and produced Ghost Rider with Nicolas Cage. Goyer is also screenwriting Ghost Rider 2 and X Men Origins: Magneto and collaborated with Nolan on a new Superman franchise with the first movie, Superman: Man of Steel, slated for release in summer 2013.

  Ironically Christian almost ended up as Superman instead of Batman after auditioning for the role back in 2003 before Batman Begins and Bryan Singer’s Superman hit screens. Director Wolfgang Petersen was all set to direct Batman vs. Superman, a big budget outing to set two of DC Comics biggest superheroes against each other.

  And Christian was one of two actors shortlisted for the part of Krypton’s favorite son, the other one being Black Hawk Down star Josh Hartnett. The movie almost happened but then Warner Bros got a single script for a Superman film from JJ Abrams while Nolan began working on Batman, so the studio decided to go with two separate movies. Abrams ended up making Superman with Brandon Routh as the Man of Steel while Nolan pushed ahead with Batman and Petersen went off to film Troy with Brad Pitt.

  Petersen revealed: “It was pretty close. And then the studio got a single Superman script I think from JJ Abrams at that time and Warner Bros chief Alan Horn was so torn because it was such a fascinating concept to do a Batman versus Superman film. And I think it still would be fun to do that. But the studio decided to try separate versions of Superman and Batman and then maybe think about down the road if they want to bring them together in one film.”

  However, Nolan seems adamant that he won’t be putting Superman and Batman into a film together anytime soon. He revealed: “A lot of people have approached Superman in a lot of different ways. I only know that the way that has worked for us, that’s what I know how to do. Batman exists in a world where he is the only superhero and a similar approach to the Man of Steel would assure the integrity needed for the film. Each serves the internal logic of the story. They have nothing to do with each other.”

  It appeared that Christian would be free to concentrate on Terminator 5 after finishing with The Dark Knight Rises. Terminator Salvation director McG had already begun working on a script as early as March 2010, and he revealed that John Connor is a big part of the movie and would possibly show up in Terminator 6, too.

  McG revealed: “We’re very far down the line with the story for that—for the next picture and even the picture after that. We can’t wait to get back at it and show the world what becomes of that war and how we master time travel because we stayed away from time travel in Salvation and I missed it. John Connor is going to travel back in time and he’s going to have to galvanize the militaries of the world for an impending Skynet invasion. They’ve figured out time travel to the degree where they can send more than one naked entity. So you’re going to have hunter killers and transports and harvesters and everything arriving in our time and John Connor fighting back with conventional military warfare, which I think is going to be awesome. It will be more of a chase movie with a new Terminator on your ass! I also think he’s going to meet a scientist that’s going to look a lot like present-day Robert Patrick, talking about stem cell research and how we can live as idealised younger versions of ourselves. I think the next film is going to be very pleasing and very surprising to the fans. That’s the goal.”

  However, by March 2011, McG was out and other directors’ names were being thrown into the mix. While Universal Studios was in the process of enticing a director to jump on board after Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron all reportedly turned down the offer to helm Terminator 5, and the next Terminator movie had been dropped from Christian’s IMDb page.

  But there is hope the fifth movie in the franchise will make it to the big screen as Justin Lin, director of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and Fast Five, revealed he had been in talks with original Terminator star Arnold Schwarzenegger after the former governor of California told his reps to start looking for movie offers once he stepped down from political office.

  Lin said: “Terminator was one of my favorite films growing up. And I feel I have a take that I would love to see and I’ve talked with Arnold and we’ve talked and we’ll see. Again, I would love to do it but it has to be the right circumstances. It has to be with the right people. And there’re other projects too. But I’m in a position now that I can choose more than I could a year ago, two years ago. So that’s something that is potentially in my future.”

  As for Christian, it remains to be seen if he’s asked to return to the role of John Connor but he spent most of 2011 filming The Dark Knight Rises for a July 2012 release. After that his schedule was pretty open, with just two future movie projects listed.

  One is The Last Photograph, in which he will play one of two men who are inspired to travel to war-torn Afghanistan by a photograph they see. The other is Concrete Island, in which he will star as an architect who finds himself stranded on a man-made island between two highways with only the contents of his car in his possession. Both movies are scheduled for release in 2013.

  As Christian’s career progresses, he has been trying to steer clear of the Hollywood machine that happily eats up and spits out its stars. He’s forged a career on his own terms. You won’t see Christian at parties or red carpet premieres for movies other than his own. He continues to be notoriously private, yet at the same time, he acknowledges that his fans have sustained him through a career that has had its share of ups and downs.

  Throughout Christian’s twenty-five years of making movies, he has always done things his way. He’s refused to play the Hollywood game and, indeed, has managed to do an end run around Tinseltown’s establishment, bypassing traditional publicity for Internet marketing, defiantly bearded and unshaven on a publicity tour.

  The Q Scores are the industry standard for measuring familiarity and appeal. Stars like Tom Hanks, Clint Eastwood, and Will Smith are routinely ranked at the top for both familiarity and their Q Score. Henry Schaefer, Executive Vice President of Marketing Evaluations, The Q Scores Company, said this about Christian: “His awareness is at 55 percent familiarity among the total population but because he won the Oscar in 2011, his Q Score actually went up to 16 percent.

  “Christian Bale’s family disputes, which were publicized shortly after the release of the movie, and the overwhelming coverage of the Heath Ledger death most likely suppressed a lot of the positive acclaim he could have potentially achieved as a result of the success of The Dark Knight. While Christian Bale benefited greatly with respect to his awareness, it did not translate into a significant gain in his appeal overall.

  “However in the past couple of years, the demographic that follows Christian has changed slightly. He is now more popular with men in the 18 to 35 age group, but he appeals more to women 35 and over. But he is still below the average Q Score for male stars, who generally are in the 20 percent range.”

  It is perhaps a perfect description of Christian’s image. He remains an enigmatic contradiction—famous but not popular. To some of his critics, Christian’s approach to acting is all dazzling technique—with the weight losses and the accents, but he hasn’t made a deeper emotional connection with the audience. Said John Farr, Huffington Post, “His acting chops are prodigious, but he seems to me to be all technique and no heart; we get buckets of perfectly formed ice, but very little fire. I see nothing behind his eyes.”

  In the spring of 2010, when news outlets reported that Christian was about to apply for U.S. citizenship, the British media tried to gauge reaction. A number of U.K. celebrities living in America change their citizenship, and the reaction can be quite negative. Pierce Brosnan became a U.S. citizen in 2004 but assured his native Ireland, “I found a whole new life and
identity in America but my heart and soul will be forever Irish.” Welsh-born Anthony Hopkins angered his hometown of Port Talbot when he became a U.S. citizen in 2000; however, he declared, “America has been very generous to me, magnanimous really. I thought it would be good to give something back.” Hopkins added, “I love Wales where I was born.”

  But when James Campbell, the mayor of Haverfordwest, Wales, Christian’s birthplace, was asked if people would be angry if Christian became a U.S. citizen, he replied, “It’s not as if we’re losing a national treasure.”

  True Baleheads understand and appreciate this star who does not seek fame. Christian summed it up when he said: “At first I was somewhat hesitant to do the role of Batman. I mean, after all, Batman is an icon. But I remember, clear as a day, being at the grocery store the day the movie opened and this little boy saw me. He couldn’t have been more than five years old. He just walked right up to me and hugged me and hugged me. He hugged me and I was so moved by it that I hugged him back. Then he looked up at me and said: ‘You’re my hero.’ And in that moment, I knew that not only as an actor that I had done my job but that I had made the right decision to play Batman.”

  And while he’s never looked back, Christian has also pushed the way forward not only for himself but for others, opening up the gates to make it acceptable for young British actors to play American superheroes. There would be an outcry if an American was chosen for a role as quintessentially British as Bond. Producers tried once to use an actor that wasn’t British, the Australian George Lazenby, and it was a total disaster. Lazenby was hired in 1968 more for his fighting skills than his acting prowess for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and he quit as Bond before the movie had even premiered. Sean Connery was soon brought back out of Bond retirement for Diamonds Are Forever in 1971 before Roger Moore took over the role. Even before Daniel Craig was hired as the latest incarnation of Bond, the actors being bandied around for the much-sought-after role were all British—Colin Farrell, Clive Owen, Ioan Gruffudd, and Christian’s old pal Ewan McGregor.