Lifestyle & Entertainment

A Peek Behind-the-Scenes of Spielberg's Minority Report

Internet Wire - June 6th, 2001

Steven Spielberg and the popular fan site CountingDown.com will give internet audiences the opportunity to go behind-the-scenes of his latest film Minority Report starring Tom Cruise by visiting the film's craft service table via a web camera known as the Bagel Cam.

Beginning June 4, 2001 fans with Internet access will be able to log on and tune in for four days until June 8, 2001. Fans will be able to view the film crew at the ever-present craft services area that on film sets provides the production with its meals, drinks and snacks.

The special Bagel Cam is strategically positioned to provide the first-ever released images from the film set. Images will be uploaded continuously throughout the production day from first call until the cast and crew goes home.

Directed by Steven Spielberg and based on a short story by Philip K. Dick (who penned the short story Do Asteroids Dream of Electric Sheep?, upon which Ridley Scott based Blade Runner), Minority Report stars Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Max von Sydow and Samantha Morton. The Twentieth Century Fox/DreamWorks thriller is set in a futuristic judicial system where killers are arrested and convicted before they commit murder.

"By visiting the set of Minority Report we hope to bring together all of the Spielberg and Cruise fans out there and show them they have a home here at CountingDown.com," states Tim Doyle a co-founder of CountingDown.com and coordinator of the webcast.

"Last year we brought fans of Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick together for the first ever released images from the set of A.I. It was an extremely exciting and successful experience that had the crew and fans interacting online. Ultimately it raised awareness of the production months before the first trailer for A.I. was even released."

"We are constantly looking for new methods to involve the fans in as many interesting, fun ways as possible, and we strive to lower the barriers which separate fans from Hollywood. This is just another example in a long list of events created by CountingDown.com that furthers our mission," states Tim Doyle.

Founded in 1998 and operated for the first two years by three people in three different countries, CountingDown.com has emerged as a leader in the online community space by creating some of the largest and most viral communities for film on the web. CountingDown.com brings fans together from around the world and counts down the days to the release of the most anticipated films of the year. Specialized 'countdowns' offer news, bulletin boards, chat, production information, photos, trailers and links. Countingdown.com helped organize and ran the world-famous marathon lines for Star Wars: Episode One at the Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, the Ziegfeld Theater in New York and the Coronet in San Francisco in 1999.

Most recently CountingDown.com streamed the only live images from the set of A.I. with the now infamous Bagel Cam including special cameo appearances by Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy. On Wednesday June 6, 2001, CountingDown.com is launching another Bagel Cam this time on the set of Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind, starring Russell Crowe, Ed Harris and Jennifer Connelly.