The Relic
Short description
A natural history museum in Chicago is preparing a major exhibition when crates of specimens arrive from an expedition in South America. It soon becomes clear that something deadly came with the shipment: people connected to the museum and to the cargo begin turning up dead or disappearing. A police lieutenant, Vincent D'Agosta, investigates with the help of Margo Green, a biologist at the museum, whose research may explain what they are up against. The hunt takes them through the museum's behind-the-scenes spaces while its administrators worry about the effect on the upcoming opening.
The film was directed by Peter Hyams, the twelfth of the seventeen features he has directed in chronological order, arriving between Sudden Death and End of Days. Penelope Ann Miller plays Green and Tom Sizemore plays D'Agosta, with Linda Hunt, James Whitmore, Clayton Rohner and Chi Muoi Lo among the credited cast; Amy Holden Jones, John Raffo and Rick Jaffa wrote the screenplay, and Gale Anne Hurd and Sam Mercer produced. It was a German, British, American and Japanese co-production with a reported budget of 60 million dollars, and it took about 34 million dollars worldwide, well below its cost. Audience scores sit in the middle range, with 5.8 out of 10 on IMDb from nearly thirty thousand votes and 6.2 out of 10 on TMDB, while critics' reviews averaged 4.7 out of 10, lower than the viewer ratings.
What's left behind the scenes
- Filming took place not only in Chicago. Another set was built in Los Angeles, depicting a flooded tunnel. Tom Sizemore fell ill with the flu twice during filming because he was constantly cold and soaked through. Work on the film even had to be temporarily suspended when director Peter Hyams became ill.
- The role of Vincent D’Agostino was originally offered to Harrison Ford.
- In the novel of the same name (1995) by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, which served as the literary basis for the film, the administration of the American Museum of Natural History in New York was depicted in a less than favorable light, so the filmmakers were not granted permission to shoot at the museum. Paramount Pictures offered a seven-figure sum for permission, but the administration refused, fearing that filming a movie about monsters would harm the museum's reputation. The filmmakers found themselves in a difficult situation, as only museums in Chicago and Washington could boast similarities to the New York museum. Fortunately for them, the administration of the Chicago museum liked the script and gave the go-ahead for filming.
- The character of Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta, played by Tom Sizemore, is actually a composite image combining two characters from the original novel. These are D’Agosta himself and FBI agent Pendergast, the main hero of the sequel and many subsequent books.
- During filming, Paramount Pictures kept the creature created by Stan Winston (1946-2008) secret – just as Universal Studios did in 1993 during filming of Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster “Jurassic Park” – so no one involved in the project was allowed to talk about the filming or the creature specifically.
- Visual and technical special effects specialist Stan Winston and his team created three creatures, each controlled by two people, while several others operated electronic equipment responsible for the movements of hands, claws, jaws, etc. Director Peter Hyams looked at Winston’s early sketches, only requesting that the creature be made even more terrifying. A computer model was used in scenes where the creature runs or jumps.
- The creature appeared on screen in the second half of the film because its production took too long, and for this reason, the film was only released in the winter of 1996/1997.
- Creating a monster unlike any seen on screen before proved to be no easy task. Artist Mark “Crash” McCreery depicted several versions of the creature based on a rather fragmented description in the original novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and director Peter Hyams chose the concept he liked best. The result was a creature with a spider-like head and a five-meter torso, hinting at the features of a lion, alligator, and horse, covered in scales, with tufts of fur protruding along its spine.
- The enormous head of the creature, which framed the entrance to the museum exhibition, is a life-size replica of the gates at the Park of Monsters in Bomarzo (Italy). The words “Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate,” or “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,” are carved above the entrance. According to the author of the “Divine Comedy” (1306-1321), Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), the same words are inscribed above the gates of Hell.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
