Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Short description
In an alternate 1939, New York City comes under attack from giant flying machines and towering robots, while prominent scientists vanish around the world. Reporter Polly Perkins has been looking into the disappearances, and she joins forces with her former partner, the aviator Joe "Sky Captain" Sullivan, who commands a private air force. Their search for whoever is behind both the abductions and the attacks leads them to the Himalayas and the elusive Dr. Totenkopf, drawing in Sullivan's ally Franky Cook and the technical expert Dex along the way. Much of the film was shot against digital backdrops rather than physical sets, giving its retro-futuristic world its distinctive look.
The film was written and directed by Kerry Conran, making his feature debut, and produced in part by star Jude Law alongside Jon Avnet and Sadie Frost. Law plays Sullivan, with Gwyneth Paltrow as Polly, Angelina Jolie as Franky, Giovanni Ribisi as Dex and Michael Gambon as Paley. Produced for around 70 million USD, it returned roughly 58 million USD worldwide. On IMDb it holds 6.1/10 from about 90,000 votes, and on TMDB 5.9/10 from over 1,400 votes, while a film critics' rating stands at 7/10 from 204 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- The first screening of the film took place on July 22, 2004, in San Diego. There were about two months left until the premiere, which provided hope for correcting some imperfections and shortcomings.
- The film was supposed to be released on June 25, 2004. However, after the release date for "Spider-Man 2" (June 30, 2004) was announced, the producers, just to be on the safe side, postponed the release by as much as 3 months – to September 17, 2004.
- The role of Dr. Totenkopf was “played” by actor Laurence Olivier – his face was recreated from old photographs.
- Angelina Jolie participated in filming for only three days. However, despite this, she met with many British pilots, veterans of World War II, long before participating in the film, to showcase some character traits of that period and convey some of the slang of the time to the audience.
- Dexter Diborn was originally supposed to be played by Casey Affleck.
- Peter Law, who played Dr. Kessler, is the father of Jude Law.
- The model of the aircraft flown by the Sky Captain – the R-40 fighter.
- Filming of the picture began on March 14, 2003, and ended on April 8, 2003.
- Joe and his friends fly over a graveyard of sunken ships. Among them are the 'Titanic' and the ship that carried King Kong (you can even see the giant monkey's cage).
- The film was initially shot on black and white film and subsequently colorized on a computer.
- The sound of the blasters installed in the heads of the giant robots was taken from the film 'The War of the Worlds' (1953).
- The very first scene filmed for the movie was the entrance of the Sky Captain into his office on the base, where Polly was waiting for him.
- Practically the entire film was shot against the blue screen, so disliked by the actors. This has become commonplace recently, as many films are packed with all sorts of computer graphics. According to the creators, there are only a few shots in the film that do not have computer special effects applied.
- To speed up the editing process, director Kerry Conran shot a lot of various shots against a blue screen. As a result, he was able to manipulate the footage and avoid spending extra time on re-shooting main scenes.
- The project was initially titled “The World of Tomorrow,” however, after the release of Roland Emmerich’s “The Day After Tomorrow” was announced, it was decided to add the name of the main character to the title.
- The idea of creating a full-length film arose after Kerry Conran shot a 6-minute video about robots walking around New York. Producer John Evnet was so impressed with what he saw that he managed to convince Conran to turn his ideas into a full-fledged project.
- Although Kerry Conran filmed a movie about events taking place in the future New York, he had never visited this metropolis in his life. He was assisted in working on the set design only by old photographs of city landmarks, many of which were digitized, processed, and used in the film as a background.
- The film was supposed to be released on June 25, 2004. However, after the release date of "Spider-Man 2" (June 30, 2004) was announced, the producers, just to be on the safe side, postponed the release by as much as 3 months — to September 17, 2004.
- Totenkopf translates from German as "Dead Head".
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