San Andreas
We always knew this day would come.
Budget
$110 000 000
Revenue
$474 590 832
Director
Brad Peyton
Scenario
Jeremy Passmore
Author
Composer
Andrew Lockington
Producer
Beau Flynn
Actors
Dwayne Johnson
Ray Gaines
Alexandra Daddario
Blake Gaines
Carla Gugino
Emma Gaines
Ioan Gruffudd
Daniel Riddick
Archie Panjabi
Serena Johnson
Paul Giamatti
Dr. Lawrence Hayes
Hugo Johnstone-Burt
Ben Taylor
Art Parkinson
Ollie Taylor
Short description
When the San Andreas Fault gives way, California is struck by a magnitude 9 earthquake that leaves Los Angeles in ruins. Ray Gaines, a search-and-rescue helicopter pilot, sets out from the city toward San Francisco with his estranged wife, Emma, hoping to reach their daughter, Blake, who is trapped in the disaster zone. The journey north takes the couple through a collapsing landscape, and the danger does not ease as they go.
Brad Peyton directed the film, his third feature after Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, and his second collaboration with Dwayne Johnson. Carlton Cuse wrote the screenplay, and Beau Flynn produced. Johnson plays Ray, with Alexandra Daddario as Blake, Carla Gugino as Emma, Ioan Gruffudd, Archie Panjabi and Paul Giamatti in supporting roles. The production involved 54 credited cast members and 235 credited crew.
Made for about 110 million US dollars, the film took roughly 475 million dollars worldwide, a strong return on its budget. Audiences have been more generous than critics: on IMDb it holds 6.1 out of 10 from around 275,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.3 out of 10 from over 9,000 votes, while the critics' rating stands at 5.2 out of 10 from 253 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- San Andreas is the name of a tectonic fault line that runs through much of California. The fault is associated with earthquakes reaching a magnitude of 8.1 and causing surface displacements of up to 7 meters. The most well-known are the San Francisco earthquake (1906) and the Loma Prieta earthquake (1989).
- Some scenes were filmed in Bakersfield, California.
- Although in the film Dwayne Johnson and Alexandra Daddario play father and daughter, the age difference between the actors is only 14 years.
- Following the devastating earthquake in Nepal in April 2015, the film's marketing campaign was adjusted to include information on emergency assistance, as well as advice on how to prepare for natural disasters.
- The actors did most of their stunts themselves because director Brad Peyton wanted the audience to see the real emotions on their faces. For example, at the beginning of the film there is a scene where Dwayne Johnson descends on a cable from a helicopter at an altitude of about 45 meters to save a girl whose car is stuck on a cliff, about 15 meters above the ground. The director wanted Johnson to complete the entire journey from the helicopter to the car himself, with the scene being filmed in one take, and the camera following the actor on a 45-meter crane. To the director's delight, Johnson agreed to this, and ultimately his vision was realized.
- In preparation for his role, Dwayne Johnson consulted with emergency response specialists and also spent time with helicopter pilots from the Los Angeles Fire Department's search and rescue unit.
- It is actually possible for an earthquake in Nevada to trigger an earthquake in Los Angeles, and for an earthquake in Los Angeles to trigger an earthquake in San Francisco. This has even happened before, but in reverse. In 1992, the Landers earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3 occurred in the Mojave Desert of California and caused a 5.3 magnitude earthquake in Nevada the following day. And in 1906, the San Francisco earthquake caused 5-magnitude earthquakes in Santa Monica, Oregon, and Nevada the next day.
- Some of the footage of the flooding shown in the news after the Hoover Dam was destroyed is footage of a major flood that occurred in 2011 in Queensland, Australia.
- Ray and Emma steal a plane from a skydiving school. When the engine is started, the sound of a piston engine is heard, and smoke is also visible. However, the plane they are starting has a turboprop engine, which has a completely different sound and does not emit any smoke during startup.
- Ray's fingernails are noticeably longer at the beginning of the film.
- When Ray and Emma steal the car from the looters, the rear tailgate is open. A few seconds after they drive away, the tailgate is already closed. Furthermore, Ray starts the car using jumper cables, but when they stop at the rift, he turns off the engine with the key.
- When Emma climbs onto the roof of a building for Ray to pick her up in a helicopter, you can see her run the same section of the roof twice.
- In several shots during the destruction of San Francisco, some buildings that had begun to collapse or had already collapsed in previous shots are shown intact again.
- In the scene where Daniel and Blake are in the parking garage and the shaking begins, the cars next to them trigger their alarms, however, when they try to leave the parking garage, the alarms on all the other cars do not go off.
- When the limousine driver stops, he only presses the brake, however, when he starts moving again, it is visible that the gearshift is in park.
- When Ray tells Ben to break the window, you can notice that Ben's watch strap is sand-colored, but before and after this scene the strap is black.
- When Ray and Emma return to the elderly couple, the camera operator can be seen reflected in the old man's glasses and in the car window.
- In the scene where the crowd is running down a San Francisco street, a sign for the Australian bank Bendigo is visible on one side of the street.
- The most direct route from Los Angeles to San Francisco does not run near Bakersfield. Furthermore, people traveling from Bakersfield to the San Francisco Bay Area would not encounter the earth fissure shown in the film.
- When Blake and Daniel land at the airport in Oakland, two errors can be noticed. First, Oakland Municipal Airport no longer exists; it is now Oakland International Airport. Second, the old control tower of San Francisco International Airport is visible in the wide shot of the airport.
- When Blake first meets Ben, a steel bridge can be seen in the background, but such bridges do not exist in San Francisco. In fact, it is the Story Bridge, located in Brisbane, Australia.
- Many of the views of San Francisco are unrealistic. For example, the Golden Gate Bridge cannot be seen from Chinatown.
- After leaving the electronics store in Chinatown, the heroes head towards Coit Tower. To do this, they walk north along Hyde Street, taking a detour of almost a kilometer. Moreover, they refer to Lombard Street as Lombard Avenue.
- When Ray and Emma fly to San Francisco, they fly over a highway full of cars, and after the highway is left behind, Emma looks out the window and sees SFO airport. This highway is actually located in Brisbane, Australia. And SFO airport is not in San Francisco, but 13 kilometers south of it, in San Mateo.
- During the destruction of San Francisco, the road rises, and subway tunnels become visible with a train inside. During any significant seismic activity, train movement stops, and passengers must evacuate and head to the nearest emergency exits to the surface.
- The tsunami wave approaching the Golden Gate Bridge is incorrectly shaped. Tsunami waves belong to so-called long waves – the distance from crest to crest (wavelength) significantly exceeds the ocean depth. Tsunamis are, in nature, close to tides. Tsunamis and tides differ from ordinary wind (storm) waves and swells. Wind waves only affect the upper layer of the ocean; at a depth of 50 meters, the disturbance is no longer felt. But tides and currents caused by a tsunami involve the movement of the entire water mass – from the bottom to the surface. Visually, this should resemble a rapidly growing wave more than a breaking wave.
- When Ray starts the car using jumper cables, he brings two wires together, they spark, and then he twists them together. In reality, he should have twisted the ignition wires together (which would not have produced any spark), then touched them to the starter wires to start the engine (which would have produced a spark), and then untwisted the wires so the engine would continue to run. Furthermore, since ignition is now located on the steering column in modern cars, starting the car in this way would have meant he wouldn't be able to steer it.
- In one scene, Ray presses the “Hover” button, after which he leaves the pilot's seat to move to the side door and save Emma. In reality, helicopters do not have such a function.
- When Ray and Emma are flying to San Francisco by helicopter, Blake calls them. When Ray answers the call, only he can hear her and talk to her, then he switches the toggle to a position where only Emma can hear Blake and talk to her. But just a moment later, they can both hear her and talk to her, and Ray did not change the toggle position.
- From the start of the earthquake, Ray, while on board the helicopter, never attempts to contact emergency services, nor do they attempt to contact him.
- At the end of the film, the water around the boat remains calm, despite a building collapsing nearby.
- At the end of the film, Ben hands Blake her two-heart pendant and says he found it on the boat. Two minutes earlier, it is clearly visible that the pendant is on Blake’s neck and has not disappeared.
- When Ray performs CPR, he makes a mistake by not pinching the nose.
- The probability of the Hoover Dam collapsing during a major earthquake is very low.
- Director Brad Peyton invited Thomas Jordan, a professor at the University of Southern California who is also the director of the Southern California Earthquake Center, to review the film's script for accuracy. While both Peyton and Dwayne Johnson claimed that the scientific facts presented in the film were accurate, according to Thomas Jordan, he provided advice to the filmmakers, but they largely disregarded it. In particular, Jordan noted that a magnitude of 9 is too high for the San Andreas Fault, and such an earthquake could not cause a large tsunami.
- The building that serves as Riddick's headquarters in San Francisco, where Blake, Ben, and Ollie meet, is the Bank of America building located at 555 California Street. The same building was used in the disaster film 'The Towering Inferno' (1974).
- Dwayne Johnson was in Budapest filming 'Hercules' (2014) when he received the script for 'San Andreas'. Johnson started reading it that same day and finished it by 3:30 AM. The actor liked the script very much and immediately wrote to producer Beau Flynn to say he was in.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
