Cube
All team (104)
Short description
A group of strangers wakes up with no memory of how they got there, trapped inside a vast structure made of interconnected cube-shaped rooms. Some chambers are safe, others are rigged with deadly traps, and the only way to survive is to keep moving. Among the captives are a police officer, an architect, a mathematician, a psychologist, a professional thief and a young autistic man, each bringing a particular skill that might help the group work out the pattern behind the maze. As fear and suspicion grow, cooperation becomes as difficult as the puzzle itself.
Cube was released in 1998 and marked the feature debut of Canadian director Vincenzo Natali, who followed it with Cypher, Splice and other films. Natali wrote the screenplay with André Bijelic and Graeme Manson, and the cast includes Nicole de Boer, Nicky Guadagni, Maurice Dean Wint, David Hewlett, Andrew Miller and Wayne Robson. Shot in Canada on a modest scale, it became a cult favourite and took around 9 million dollars worldwide.
On IMDb it holds a 7.1 rating from roughly 261,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.8 from a much smaller pool of about 5,400. The critics' rating of 6.1 from 41 reviews is lower than both audience scores, suggesting that viewers have warmed to the film more than reviewers did on its release.
What's left behind the scenes
- Vincenzo Natali had been developing the idea for the film for about five years.
- Leven's assertion about the 'astronomical' task of decomposing three-digit numbers into prime factors is not entirely accurate. In reality, it is quite easy to determine whether a three-digit number is prime. The largest factor that needs to be checked is 31 (since 31² = 961, the next prime factor gives 37² = 1369 – already a four-digit number), and since divisibility by 2, 3, 5, 7, and 11 is very easy to check using known rules, only 6 prime factors (13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31) remain to be checked. Furthermore, powers of prime factors are very easily checked for three-digit numbers: only 11 of them have squares, only 4 have cubes, only 3 have fourth powers, and even higher powers are only present in 2 of them – 2 and 3, which are trivial to check. All this greatly simplifies the task, and there is no 'astronomical' aspect to these calculations.
- Vincenzo Natali considered the filming a disaster and was very surprised when the film received international recognition: “If someone had told me at the time that 'Cube' would be widely released and have a sequel, I would have fallen off my chair.”
- To show support for the Toronto film industry, C.O.R.E. produced all of the film’s digital effects for free.
- On the very first day of filming, the crew encountered a difficult problem – the mechanical hatch connecting the cube's rooms was so heavy that even Maurice Dean Wint, a man of robust build, could not move it. Since the entire script revolved around opening and closing doors, it was decided to film a large dialogue scene. Special effects master William Phillips rebuilt the door structure from materials purchased at a hardware store.
- The film was shot in 20 days in a recording studio in Toronto. Only one room, measuring 14x14x14 feet, was built for the filming. The room’s color was changed using interchangeable colored panels. The film was shot sequentially for each color, as changing the panels took time. Initially, they wanted to use six colors for the room, but due to the limited budget, they had to settle for five. There was only one functioning door on set.
- Vincenzo Natali also filmed a ‘bonus’ short film showing the Cube from the outside. However, he vowed never to reveal what lies beyond the Cube and later destroyed the short film.
- In one of the early script drafts, the characters found unnatural alien food. The idea had to be abandoned because it gave too clear an idea of the creators of the Cube.
- The hatch handles are pipe threading protectors and are available at any hardware store.
- The Cube consists of 26x26x26 = 17576 rooms, plus one 'bridge' room.
- The characters not only bear the names of prisons but also reflect their characteristics. Kazan (a person suffering from autism) is a disorganized prison. Quentin (a policeman) is known for his brutality. Holloway is a women's prison. Alderson is a prison where isolation is a common punishment. Leavenworth is a prison with a precise set of rules (mathematical precision of Leavenworth).
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