Empire of the Ants
Short description
A Florida real estate agent takes a group of prospective buyers by boat to a stretch of swampland she is marketing as the future site of a resort called Dreamland Shores. The visitors expect to tour building plots; instead they come up against ants that have grown enormous after feeding on radioactive waste. The insects have also developed powers that reach beyond the island, affecting a nearby town and everyone in it, so escape is not simply a matter of getting away from the nest.
Bert I. Gordon directed and produced the film, working from a screenplay by Jack Turley. It followed his 1976 film The Food of the Gods within his filmography, and it was the fourth of the five features he directed listed here, arriving after Earth vs. the Spider, Tormented and Picture Mommy Dead. Joan Collins heads the cast as Marilyn Fryser, the agent, with Robert Lansing as Dan Stokely, John David Carson as Joe Morrison, Albert Salmi as Sheriff Art Kincade, Jacqueline Scott as Margaret Ellis and Pamela Susan Shoop as Coreen Bradford, among 21 credited performers.
The film runs 89 minutes and was released in June 1977. It took about 3 million dollars worldwide, a modest return for a production from American International Pictures and Cinema 77. On IMDb it holds 4.3 out of 10 from around 6,100 votes, and on TMDB 5 out of 10 from roughly 130 votes, audience scores that sit close to each other.
What's left behind the scenes
- Director, screenwriter, and producer Burt A. Gordon inserted enlarged images of the Paraponera clavata, or bullet ant – a common insect in Central and South America – into the film.
- As a promotional stunt, cinemas displayed ant farms in their lobbies.
- According to actress Pamela Susan Shoup, a fight broke out between the director and the sound engineer near the end of filming, and the latter was so angry that he threw all the audio recordings into a swamp. Everything was irrevocably lost. The sound had to be re-recorded, which is why the image and sound are not always perfectly synchronized.
- According to actress Joan Collins, the stunt doubles were late for the filming of the scene with the capsizing canoe, forcing the actors to perform the scene themselves. She was reluctant, but director Bert A. Gordon pressured her, and the actress had to comply. She was afraid that refusing would mean no further offers to appear in films.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
