G-Force
Short description
G-Force is a family adventure that mixes live action with computer-generated animals. A secret government program has trained a small team of guinea pigs, led by Darwin, to work as spies. Alongside weapons expert Blaster, computer specialist Juarez, mole Speckles and fly Mooch, the unit is sent to gather files from Saber Industries, a manufacturer of household appliances. What begins as a routine infiltration turns into the discovery of a plot called Cluster Storm, in which kitchen machines are meant to threaten the whole world. When the authorities refuse to take the danger seriously and shut the program down, the animals end up in a pet shop and have to find a way out before they can act. A guinea pig named Hurley and a hamster named Bucky join them along the way.
The film was directed by Hoyt Yeatman, a visual effects supervisor making his feature directorial debut, from a screenplay by Cormac Wibberley and Marianne Wibberley. Jerry Bruckheimer produced it for Walt Disney Pictures, with a reported budget of 150 million dollars. The voice cast includes Sam Rockwell, Jon Favreau, Tracy Morgan, Penélope Cruz and Nicolas Cage, and the production credits list thirty cast members and 108 crew members. Its worldwide takings came to about 293 million dollars. Audience scores are modest: on IMDb it holds 5.1 out of 10 from roughly 53,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 5.5 from just over two thousand. A critics' rating of 4.5 from 125 reviews places it slightly below those viewer figures.
What's left behind the scenes
- Initially, the film was planned to be released in Russian theaters under the title "Brigada-M".
- The initial idea for creating "Darwin's Mission" was suggested by the five-year-old son of director Hoyt Yeatman Jr. One day, the boy brought home a guinea pig and remarked that it would be cool if these creatures could be soldiers.
- Something for the first time: "Darwin's Mission" is Jerry Bruckheimer's first foray into the world of three-dimensional cinematography. Also, "Darwin's Mission" is the first film about guinea pigs who have become secret agents!
- The idea of transforming trained animals into intelligence agents has been reflected not only in cinema. The internet frequently features stories about other members of the animal kingdom: from cockroaches stuffed with miniature cameras to dolphins trained to search for mines, and squirrels equipped with recording devices for covert espionage. All of them, allegedly, serve in secret government organizations.
- If anyone was to be entrusted with directing an action movie packed with special effects about computer-generated rodents, it should have been Hoyt Yeatman. It's not for nothing he was awarded an "Oscar" for outstanding achievement in visual effects for the film "The Abyss," as well as a certificate for merit in science and technology – for promoting computer graphics rendering technology.
- Scott Stockdick, head of the film's visual effects department representing Sony Imageworks, has received two American Academy Awards, including an "Oscar" for outstanding achievement in visual effects for "Spider-Man 2."
- A rich assortment of the latest reconnaissance equipment was specifically developed and constructed for the film's shooting, scaled to the size of the main characters. This included an ergonomic command center keyboard for the mole Speckles (because miniature mole claws aren't meant for hitting keys!)
- The main villain in "Darwin's Mission" manages to bring household appliances to life (naturally, with the goal of taking over Earth). Many of the home appliances were "implanted" with animal personalities. For example, the dishwasher behaves like a typical dominant male in a gorilla troop.
- As for the Lilliputian secret agents, the filmmakers tried to create the most realistic guinea pigs possible using computer graphics. Animal behavior was studied – both in nature and in the virtual world – to subsequently create the most believable atmosphere. The result was an explosive symbiosis of computer animation and real action in the film's three-dimensional world.
- Attention! The filmmakers warn that the "break-out-of-frame" technology was used – when watching in 3D, the three-dimensional characters, figuratively speaking, "break out" of the scene's setting into the auditorium.
- Special cameras were used to shoot the real world from the perspective of an average rodent. The "Zhivchik" (named for the funny noise it made during shooting) camera could shoot a scene while rotating 360 degrees, after which the image was digitized on a computer. The "Mukhozor" 35mm camera was equipped with a very wide "fish-eye" lens to accurately convey Agent Mukha's field of vision.
- Thoughts on ecology are subconscious: The largest film set was built to create the atmosphere of Dr. Ben Kendall's laboratory (the creator of the G-Force team). Metal structures, obsolete electrical parts, and other technical waste, including an aircraft fuselage, were used for the construction. Speckles the mole's burrow is filled with mobile phones and their spare parts.
- The site on which Ben Kendall's house was built was constructed from recycled materials. A unique house on the Redondo Beach in California was built from old shipping containers.
- When actor Sam Rockwell was little, he had a guinea pig named Ralph. The latter had a habit of biting the finger of the person feeding him.
- Harry Gregson-Williams was originally supposed to compose the music for the film, but he left the project to focus on working on "Prince of Persia" (2010).
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
