For months, makers of the upcoming Justin Bieber 3-D film have been soliciting ideas and suggestions from fans about what the movie should be.
Now they're ready to give some information back.
First, Paramount Pictures has released the movie poster, printed on the back page of this newspaper (and ready for taping to bedroom walls).
On Twitter, the poster has been revealed over the past two days in a 10-piece treasure hunt, beginning with director Jon Chu's feed Wednesday. The final piece was revealed at midnight at the USA TODAY feed (hashtag #JBValentinesDay).
Second, the closely guarded title of the movie —Never Say Never.
"It's from one of his songs, but also the idea of every moment in his life," says Chu (Step Up 2: The Streets, Step Up 3-D) about the 16-year-old from a small town in Canada who sang on street corners, made some YouTube videos, and suddenly became a pandemonium-inducing phenomenon. The teen's memoir, First Step 2 Forever: My Story (HarperCollins, $21.99), went on sale Tuesday.
The movie title is meant to inspire Bieber's fans, whose passion comes partly from seeing their own hopes in his success, Chu says. But it's also a subtle dig at anyone who discourages another's dreams.
"When he was a kid, some people said, 'You can't play the drums,' and he did. Or, 'You can post it on the Internet, but no one will see it.' Then millions of people saw it," Chu says. " 'OK, you're a YouTube star, but you're not signed anywhere ...' "
It's clear how that turned out.
Nicolette Gudknecht, 17, who has 162,000 followers on her Twitter fan account @BieberArmy, says that's what she wants to see: the back story of this kid who made it from nothing.
"He wasn't super rich and didn't bop around Hollywood before," says Gudknecht, of Perkasie, Pa. "He reminds you of an average kid."
She believes fans feel an ownership in his success because he wasn't anointed the next big thing by some studio or record label. Instead, kids made him a star by virally sharing his homemade videos and songs.
They're not shy about telling filmmakers what they want from this movie, set to open Feb. 11.
"I don't want to just see a bajillion screaming girls for 20 minutes," says Josh Marusiak, 16, of Alberta, Canada, who runs the fan site JBSource.org (and has 165,000 Twitter followers). He'd rather "see the more intimate side, what Justin is really like, because anyone can show a smile for the cameras. I'd show his true personality."
Using the 3-D concert footage as a framework, Chu delves into Bieber's history, showing comical home movies of him singing with a toy guitar as a little kid, as well as the behind-the-scenes operations of his current stardom.
Another area of Bieber's life the movie will explore: romance.
Although he's a teen heartthrob, Chu says, "he still has crushes."
Source