Paddington
Short description
A young bear from the forests of Peru grows up hearing about England from his aunt Lucy, who once met an English explorer and passed on her fondness for the country to her nephew. When an earthquake destroys their home, Lucy sends the bear to London, where he arrives alone at Paddington Station with a label asking that someone look after him. There he meets the Brown family, who take him in and name him after the station. The city turns out to be less welcoming than he had imagined, and the family's decision to help him puts him in the path of a museum taxidermist who has other plans for a bear.
The film was directed by Paul King, who also wrote the screenplay, and was produced by David Heyman and James Joseph McDonald. It is King's first feature as director, ahead of Paddington 2 and Wonka. Ben Whishaw voices Paddington, while Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins play Henry and Mary Brown, with Julie Walters as Mrs. Bird and Madeleine Harris and Samuel Joslin as the Brown children.
Made for around 55 million USD, it went on to take about 334 million USD worldwide, a strong return on its budget. On IMDb it holds 7.3/10 from roughly 155,000 votes and on TMDB 7.1/10 from over 4,300 votes, while critics rated it 7.9/10 across 161 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film is based on the series of books by Michael Bond about Paddington Bear.
- Initially, Hugh Laurie or Colin Firth were considered to voice Paddington Bear.
- When Paddington crawls along the pipe, one of the vacuum cleaners turns off, which is a reference to the film *Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol* (2011).
- When Paddington escapes from the laboratory, he slides under a closing door and manages to grab his hat. This is a reference to the Indiana Jones films.
- The character of Paddington was created by English writer Michael Bond (he is listed as a screenwriter in the credits). Once, in a London store on the eve of Christmas 1956, Bond saw a lonely teddy bear. Bond bought it as a gift for his wife and decided to write a book (it was published in 1958). The plot of the story about a lonely bear cub at Paddington Station was inspired by old newsreel footage of the evacuation of children from London during World War II.
- Preparing for the role, Nicole Kidman (who played Millicent) learned to throw knives. She later said that during filming she was told not to demonstrate her skill with cold weapons too openly, after all, the film was intended for children. Ultimately, these scenes were completely cut from the film.
- The prospect of filming a feature film about Paddington initially frightened Michael Bond, but all his fears about the feasibility of the undertaking were dispelled as soon as he began to watch the test footage.
- Nicole Kidman's agent initially didn't even want to tell the actress about the possibility of playing Millicent. He mentioned the possibility in passing, clearly expecting Kidman to reject it outright, but the actress reacted to the news with enthusiasm and expressed her desire to star in the film. It turned out that she had liked Bond's books since childhood, and that as a child she dreamed of having Paddington Bear live in her house.
- During pre-production, director and screenwriter Paul King went to children's films in cinemas several times to see what exactly made children laugh. He usually took his wife with him so as not to look like a "suspicious loner."
- In the film, Paddington is shown in a traditional blue coat and red hat. Producer David Heyman instructed them to do without the red boots, because the original Paddington did not have them; they were added to the image at the factories where toy Paddingtons were made.
- On her way to the set for night shooting, Sally Hawkins (who played Mary Brown) suffered a concussion after colliding with a crane. Her head wound was covered with a headdress after she firmly refused to leave the set or see a doctor until she had finished filming her scenes.
- The special effects artists found it particularly difficult to work on Paddington's smile. The specialists had planned to give him a realistic bear-like appearance, but a human smile simply didn't suit him. Instead of a smile as such, the specialists had to add warmth to the bear's gaze and joy to his eyes.
- The bear in the film is a product of computer technology. During filming, for the convenience of the actors, they used a simple stick with a puppet Paddington's face attached to it, and several toy Paddingtons were scattered around the set.
- A real bathtub was used in the scene of the flood at the Browns' house. Filming took several weeks, and it was especially difficult to shoot the scene of the bathtub sliding down the stairs.
- When Colin Firth was invited to voice Paddington, he recorded his lines wearing a helmet with a small GoPro sports camera that streamed his facial expressions to the animators. Later, Ben Whishaw replaced Firth, and all the previously recorded lines had to be re-dubbed, as well as all the animation redone.
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