Wimbledon
Short description
Peter Colt is a British tennis player whose career has faded. Once ranked eleventh in the world, he has slipped far down the rankings and is preparing to leave the professional circuit. A wild card entry gives him one more chance to compete at Wimbledon, which he expects to be his last tournament. There he meets Lizzie Bradbury, an American player on the rise, and a romance develops between them. Her father and manager watches the relationship with concern, while Peter's renewed focus on court carries him further into the draw than anyone expected.
Richard Loncraine directed the film, working from a screenplay by Adam Brooks, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin. It followed his earlier features Richard III and The Gathering Storm and was released in 2004. Paul Bettany plays Peter, Kirsten Dunst plays Lizzie, and Sam Neill, Jon Favreau, Bernard Hill and Eleanor Bron appear in supporting roles.
Made for a budget of 31 million dollars, the film took about 41 million dollars worldwide. It draws a 6.4 rating on IMDb from roughly 69,000 votes and 6.2 on TMDB from a much smaller number of votes, while critics gave it 6.1 from 142 reviews, a score in line with the audience response. The story moves between the professional tour and the central relationship, with the tournament itself shaping how far both players progress.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film was shot during the 2003 Wimbledon Championships. The actors went onto the court at the beginning or end of a match, as if they were competitors. The officials and spectators in these scenes were actually officials and spectators at the tournament, not invited extras. This was the only time in the more than century-long history of Wimbledon that such a thing was allowed.
- Initially, the lead male role was intended for Hugh Grant.
- The lead female role could have gone to Reese Witherspoon.
- Ian Somerhalder was considered for the role of Jake Hammond, but the director preferred another candidate.
- Maria Sharapova could have played the role of one of Kirsten Dunst's rivals, but it was decided against because they looked too much alike from a distance.
- Klaus Badelt was supposed to be the composer for the film and had already started working, but problems with his other project, "Catwoman (2004)", led to him having to give way to Ed Shermur.
- To better suit her role, Kirsten Dunst had to undergo serious physical training.
- Getting the actors to play tennis, at least convincingly, turned out to be much more difficult than expected. Ultimately, it was decided that the actors would mostly just mimic hitting the ball, and the ball itself would be added later using computer graphics. However, the actors performed the serves themselves with a real tennis ball.
- Scenes showing crowds gathered at the Wimbledon entrance were actually filmed at the entrance to London Zoo, simply because the filmmakers thought it looked more interesting there.
- Scenes on the seafront in the English town of Brighton were filmed between September 1st and 6th, 2003, with 250 local residents used as extras.
- The tennis consultant and actor coach was the famous Australian tennis player of the 80s, Pat Cash, who won the Wimbledon tournament in 1987, defeating Ivan Lendl in the final.
- The film features 9 former and current professional tennis players. Five of them (Vikas Pun, Betty Sekulovski, Murphy Jensen, Alan Jones, and Rebecca Dandeniya) played the roles of tennis players – tournament participants. The other four (John McEnroe, Chris Evert, Mary Carillo, and John Barrett) appear as themselves – sports commentators at the tournament. Notably, Chris Evert and John McEnroe were themselves Wimbledon tournament winners.
- Filming of the movie began on June 28th, 2003, at Wimbledon and other locations in the UK, with a budget of $35 million, immediately after Kirsten Dunst finished filming 'Spider-Man 2'. Filming wrapped up in early autumn of the same year. The original planned start date for filming was July 2002.
- The working title of the film was "Two Weeks in Love".
- This film was dedicated to Mark McCormack, a prominent figure in American sports.
- The story of Peter Colt in the film largely resembles the performance of the famous Croatian tennis player Goran Ivanišević at the 2001 Wimbledon tournament, which he won as the 125th ranked player in the world after receiving a wildcard from the organizers.
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