Men in Black 3
Back in time.
Men in Black 3 (2012)
Budget
$225 000 000
Revenue
$624 026 776
Director
Scenario
Composer
Producer
Walter F. Parkes
Actors
Will Smith
Agent J
Tommy Lee Jones
Agent K
Josh Brolin
Young Agent K
Jemaine Clement
Boris The Animal
Emma Thompson
Agent O
Michael Stuhlbarg
Griffin
Mike Colter
Colonel
Nicole Scherzinger
Boris's Girlfriend
Short description
When Agent K vanishes from the present and only Agent J remembers he ever existed, the Men in Black agent realises history has been changed. The culprit is Boris the Animal, an alien criminal K captured decades earlier, who has escaped from a lunar prison and travelled back to 1969 to kill the younger K and avert his own capture. With the planet and his partner's life at stake, J follows him into the past, where he must work alongside a much younger version of K and confront secrets his taciturn partner never shared.
Barry Sonnenfeld directed this 2012 science fiction action comedy, the third entry in the series he began with Men in Black in 1997 and continued with Men in Black II in 2002. Etan Cohen wrote the screenplay, and Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald produced. Will Smith returns as Agent J, Tommy Lee Jones as Agent K, and Josh Brolin plays the young K, with Jemaine Clement as Boris, Emma Thompson as Agent O and Michael Stuhlbarg as Griffin. The film was a large production, with a budget reported at 225 million US dollars, and it took about 654 million US dollars worldwide. Audiences are moderately positive: it holds 6.8/10 on IMDb from around 410,000 votes and 6.5/10 on TMDB from roughly 11,000 votes, while a critics' rating of 6/10 from about 250 reviews sits close to those audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Responsibility for Cape Kennedy lay with the US Air Force, but all the military personnel encountered by the heroes are wearing US Army uniforms.
- The location of the 1969 party with Andy Warhol is clearly a depiction of his “Silver Factory,” so named because its walls were covered in aluminum foil. The Silver Factory closed in 1968.
- Josh Brolin plays the younger Tommy Lee Jones (Agent K). Brolin's wife, Diane Lane, starred with Jones in the miniseries 'Lonesome Dove'. In the sequel 'Streets of Laredo', Lane's role was taken by Sissy Spacek, who played Tommy Lee Jones' wife in 'Coal Miner's Daughter', and is actually a cousin of Rip Torn.
- The cable descent system shown in the film near the Apollo launch pad does indeed exist. It was installed for Apollo and subsequently expanded for the Space Shuttle program. In emergency situations, the crew was meant to descend in steel cabs along cable lines to blast-proof bunkers. Mastering the system was part of the astronauts' training, but it was never used in a real emergency.
- July 15, 1969 – the night before the launch of Apollo 11 – the Moon was not full, as shown in the film, but quite the opposite: it was a crescent, a day before the new moon.
- The countdown clocks displayed during the 'Apollo 11' launch did not exist in 1969.
- In the film, the lunar prison is located in the upper quadrant of the lunar surface, with the landed "Apollo" nearby. "Apollo" landings didn’t take place so far north, mostly in the equatorial zone.
- In Jay's room during his phone conversation with Kay, a portrait of Frank the dog, known from the two previous films, hangs on the wall, and in the second film the dog was Jay's temporary partner during Kay's absence. The dog's image (with the caption “incredible talking dog”) can also be seen on a poster in the scene where Jay is stopped for a search by police in 1969.
- This is the second trilogy installment from producer Steven Spielberg to incorporate "Apollo 11" into its storyline. The first was "Transformers: Dark of the Moon", which draws attention to the fact that Apollo discovered a Transformer spacecraft.
- The film is based on a comic book series by Lowell Cunningham, which was published from 1990 to 1991 by Marvel under its Aircel Comics and Malibu Comics imprints.
- To get into the role of Lili Poison, Nicole Scherzinger listened to Led Zeppelin.
- Gemma Arterton was supposed to play the role of the young Agent O, but due to a scheduling conflict, she had to turn down the role.
- The striking strip on a matchbox is located on its back. In 1969, these strips were on the front. They were moved for safety reasons due to a 1973 law.
- At the headquarters of "Men in Black," Bill Gates, David Beckham, Ming Yao, and Lady Gaga can be seen on holographic screens.
- Will Smith's personal makeup artist, Judy Murdock, appears in the film as an alien with blue skin.
- The Spanish flag waving in the wind during the launch scene at Cape Canaveral is the country's current flag. Under Franco's regime in 1969, Spain had a different flag (a heraldic shield with a black eagle).
- At the very beginning of the film, the Apollo lunar module is shown with the ascent module. This module was launched from the Moon to return the astronauts to the command module for the journey back to Earth.
- Michael Bay showed a clear interest in directing the film.
- The inscription “CRM-114” appears twice in the film: on the outer wall of the lunar prison (visible when Boris escapes) and as the identification number of the bunker on the beach at Cape Canaveral. These numbers are a tribute to director Stanley Kubrick, who used them in his film 'Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb' (1963).
- Barry Sonnenfeld made a cameo appearance in the film, playing the head of a family watching the launch of "Apollo 11" from a couch with a cup of coffee.
- Yuri Lovental, who voices the graffiti alien, also voiced Ben Tennyson in the "Ben 10" animated series, whose family is connected to an organization very similar to "Men in Black".
- As Jay and Kay leave headquarters and drive to Cosmic Lanes, they pass the same street twice. This is visible by the van with the horizontal panel.
- The lunar module seen near the prison at the beginning of the film is presumably the "Eagle" from Apollo 11. In this case, the flag should not be standing (astronauts reported noticing its movement when leaving the Moon, unless someone moved it).
- Papua New Guinea gained independence in 1975. The national flag was adopted on July 1, 1971. Consequently, this flag did not exist in 1969, yet it is clearly visible in several frames during the speech before the launch of 'Apollo 11'.
- Visual effects specialist and makeup artist Rick Baker appeared in a cameo role as an alien with a completely shaved head.
- The cars on Coney Island visible behind Agents Jay and Kay have rectangular headlights, which did not exist in 1969.
- When young Jay and Kay go to eat pie, the waitress places a plate of pie in front of Kay. In the next frame, while he is talking to Agent Jay, his mouth is already full.
- As Jay, Kay, and Griffin enter Men in Black headquarters to fly to Cape Canaveral, three medallions can be seen above the entrance door. They were designed by Paul Manship and weren't there in 1969. They were installed on the New York Coliseum's convention center in midtown Manhattan. These reliefs were removed in 1999 when preparations for demolition began and were later installed on the ventilation building.
- This is Will Smith's first film in 3.5 years, since the release of 'Seven Pounds' in December 2008. This is the longest break in his film career, which began in 1993.
- In the original, the Army colonel says “the brig” (the holding cell on a naval vessel). The Navy calls it “the brig,” while the Army’s equivalent facility is called “the stockade.”
- In the film, the characters appear on the service tower at the Apollo 11 launch pad. Since this event was widely televised, it is thought that millions of people may have seen them.
- Agent J arrives at the office thinking his partner Kay is playing a trick on him and shouts at everyone in the room trying to find Kay. On the monitors, which display aliens (disguised as humans) carefully monitored by Men in Black, director Tim Burton can be glimpsed in the background behind Agent J.
- Rumor has it that Betty White auditioned for a role in the film.
- Sacha Baron Cohen was considered for the role of Boris.
- The talking alien fish that lay on a cutting board in a Chinese restaurant is actually an earthly fish, Psychrolutes marcidus – a deep-sea benthic fish of the psychrolutidae family, often called one of the most bizarre deep-sea fish on the planet due to its unattractive appearance, inhabiting depths of 600–1200 m off the coasts of Australia and Tasmania.
- In the film, the "Apollo 11" launch site is referred to as Cape Canaveral. This would be natural for Agent J, but not for the young Agent K, as the cape was renamed Cape Kennedy after President Kennedy's assassination in 1963. The name changed back to Cape Canaveral only in 1973, after the "Apollo 11" launch.
- The previous film, "Men in Black II", was released in the same year as "Spider-Man". The new film is coming out 10 years later, and a new "Spider-Man" will also appear on screens this year.
- Screenwriter David Koepp, who initially worked on 'Men in Black 2' but left the project for the screenplay to 'Spider-Man', was brought on board as a writer for 'Men in Black 3'.
- Young Agent K is tasked with placing a pendant on a rocket to deliver it into space, thereby protecting Earth. This rocket never flew into space. Only once did a Saturn-5 reach a height where a jettisoned escape module could safely parachute in an emergency.
- According to the trailer, Agent J travels from 2012 to 1969, 43 years into the past. He wakes up and sees a young Agent K, played by Josh Brolin. Brolin is only 21 years and 5 months younger than Tommy Lee Jones, who plays the adult Agent K.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
