It’s April, which means that the Duffer Brothers‘ decade-long tenure at Netflix has come to an end and they have moved to Paramount with a four-year, exclusive deal for feature films, television, and streaming projects. Paramount wasted no time showing off the Stranger Things creators in the studio’s glitzy, big-budget mini-movie celebrating its movie history and looking at the future.
The elaborate promo, directed by Wicked‘s Jon M. Chu, who has a film and TV deal at Paramount, and narrated by Tom Cruise, was shown Wednesday at the top of Paramount’s presentation at CinemaCon in Las Vegas and hours later at the start of the company’s upfront presentation in Los Angeles. Related Stories News Paramount-WBD Merger Cleared By Australia News David Ellison Assures Lesley Stahl That '60 Minutes' Will Have Editorial Independence
In it, the Duffers appear alongside other talent signed to overall or first-look deals by the new Paramount regime over the past eight months, including James Mangold, Issa Rae, Dan Trachtenberg and Will Smith, as well as other A-listers who have movies at the studio, including Timothée Chalamet, Mark Wahlberg, Chris Pratt, Marlon Wayans, John Krasinski, Teyana Taylor and Johnny Knoxville. Some of them are woven into famous Paramount films, like Chalamet, who is taking a piece of chocolate from the Forrest Gump box left on the famous bench from the movie. Watch on Deadline
The Duffer Brothers are seen sitting in a dark movie theater, eating popcorn. Top producer Jerry Bruckheimer leans in and says, “This is my favorite part.”
Whether it was intentional or not, the Duffers’ scene carries significance as it celebrates the theatrical experience. As Deadline has reported, Paramount being able to offer the duo the opportunity to work on theatrical movies was one of the keys for them to choose it over staying at streamer Netflix. They spoke about that and Paramount’s long history — which is the focus of the sizzle video — in their statement at the time the deal was announced in August.
Fitting for the famous daredevil, the stunt was performed by Cruise and is not the result of green screen magic.
Source: deadline.com