Christian Bale Tantrum Best Advance Publicity for Terminator Salvation The Most Experienced Publicist Couldn’t Have Concocted

Christian Bale’s rant on the set of Terminator Salvation, in which he foul-mouths a director of photography who interrupted an intense scene is by now quite infamous. It’s been mentioned in every entertainment and hard core news show. And being celebrated with snarky headlines in highly-trafficked blog posts. More importantly, it’s already been turned into a musical, via a remix by an L.A. producer whose video of the remix has become  the YouTube video du jour, netting  117,737 views in less than 24 hours after it was posted. What more could a studio executive ask for?

If a countdown were to be made of an unintended audio viral campaigns, this little incident would no doubt be among the Top 5. But an astute publicist would look at this differently. Perhaps as the best advance publicity advertising dollars could never buy for a movie franchise that—some skeptics have contended—is running out of gas.

Perhaps that may explain why Bruce Franklin the Assistant Director of the film was quick to explain away Bale’s behavior on the set with:

“If you are working in a very intense scene and someone takes you out of your groove…It was the most emotional scene in the movie,” said Franklin. “And for him to get stopped in the middle of it. He is very intensely involved in his character. He didn’t walk around like that all day long. It was just a moment and it passed.

“This was my second movie with Christian, and it has always been a good experience with him,” added Franklin, who also worked with the actor on 2000’s Shaft. “He is so dedicated to the craft. I think someone is begging to make some noise about this, but I don’t think it’s fair. The art of acting is not paint by numbers, it’s an art form. “

Pic Credit: TMI