Oblivion
Earth is a memory worth fighting for.
Oblivion (2013)
2:04 (124 min)
Production
Budget
$120 000 000
Revenue
$286 168 572
Director
Scenario
Composer
Anthony Gonzalez
Producer
Duncan Henderson
Actors
Tom Cruise
Jack
Morgan Freeman
Beech
Olga Kurylenko
Julia
Andrea Riseborough
Victoria
Melissa Leo
Sally
Zoë Bell
Kara
Abigail Lowe
Julia's Child
Short description
Oblivion takes place on an Earth left largely uninhabitable after a war with an alien force. Jack, a technician stationed on the ruined surface, services the drones that guard the machinery draining the planet's remaining resources for a human colony established elsewhere. Working alongside a partner named Victoria, he is close to finishing his assignment when he rescues a woman from a crashed spacecraft. Meeting her pushes him to reconsider his mission and everything he has been told about the state of the world.
Joseph Kosinski directed the film, his second feature after TRON: Legacy and the first of several collaborations with Tom Cruise that continued with Top Gun: Maverick and F1. Cruise plays Jack, with Andrea Riseborough as Victoria, Olga Kurylenko as the rescued woman, Morgan Freeman as Beech, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Sykes and Melissa Leo as Sally. Michael Arndt and Karl Gajdusek wrote the screenplay, and Kosinski produced with Duncan Henderson and Barry Levine.
The film was released in April 2013 and runs 124 minutes. Against a budget of 120 million dollars, it earned about 286 million dollars worldwide, a solid return without reaching the top tier of Cruise's blockbusters. On IMDb it holds 7 out of 10 from roughly 584,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.7 from far fewer votes. A critics' score of 5.9 from 254 reviews places it below both audience measures, so viewers have generally been warmer toward it than reviewers.
What's left behind the scenes
- Initially, this project was an eight-page script written by Joseph Kosinski, which was transformed into a comic book in 2007. Its release was eventually postponed until the film's release.
- According to the director, the films “The Omega Man” (1971), “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), “Blade Runner” (1982), and the novel “Hyperion” by Dan Simmons served as sources of inspiration for writing the story, the comic book, and creating the film.
- Among the surviving works of art shown are “Liberty Bell,” as well as some paintings by Claude Monet and Andrew Wyeth (“Christina’s World”).
- Specifically for the film, a group of cinematographers went to the top of the Haleakala volcano on the island of Maui and, using three Sony F65 cameras, filmed atmospheric phenomena, sunsets and sunrises. The resulting footage was then combined to create 40 minutes of 26-megapixel video. It was cut into 10 separate clips – depending on the time of day and night, weather conditions, and so on. As a result, 130 four-minute clips were prepared for each scene described in the script. Then these views were simply projected onto the walls of the pavilion housing the 'Heavenly Tower' using 21 projectors.
- The football field was created by special effects artists based on the crater of the Hrossaborg volcano in Iceland, which became extinct more than 10,000 years ago.
- Kosinski talked about how they filmed the home of Tom Cruise and Andrea Riseborough’s characters – “Oblivion”: “I didn’t want to make a film with an excess of blue screen. So we found a way to modernize the front-projection method used by Kubrick in “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968). He projected a high-resolution photograph onto the entire set and filmed everything in such a way that it appeared as if the image on the photo was located outside. And we did the same thing.”
- During the filming of scenes in “Oblivion,” they managed to avoid several problems that would have arisen from using blue screens. Firstly, the filming was done in “natural” lighting; the projection onto the screen was bright enough to provide the necessary shades throughout the set and on the actors’ faces. Secondly, during color correction, it was not necessary to remove the extra “blueness” that a blue screen would have given (especially in such quantities). And thirdly, the actors saw (almost) the same thing that the viewers would later see, which significantly simplified their task.
- The scene of flying through the ice canyon took the effects creators the most time and effort. The scene clearly references “Star Wars,” however, while Lucas did everything “in-camera,” this flight for “Oblivion” was created using 3ds Max and Houdini. A low-polygon model was created in Max, which was then detailed in Houdini and subsequently imported back into 3ds Max for texturing and shading. The flight through the canyon took the special effects creators the longest – a total of about 15 months. Over two hundred people worked on it.
- Olivia Wilde, Noomi Rapace, Kate Mara, Olga Kurylenko, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Brit Marling auditioned for the role of Julia. Jessica Chastain was also considered for the role but declined due to scheduling conflicts, and the role ultimately went to Kurylenko.
- Jack's motorcycle in the film is a modified Honda CRF450X enduro model.
- Filming was done using the newly developed Sony CineAlta F65 camera.
- The set almost exactly replicated the building of the actual New York Public Library, located at the intersection of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. The total area of the structure was 30,726 square feet (2,861 square meters).
- A full-scale model of the aircraft used by Tom Cruise’s character (Bubbleship) was built. It is a hybrid of a helicopter and a jet fighter. According to Kosinski, he wanted to show “clean, advanced technology” in the film, not the typical rusty devices of post-apocalyptic settings that are about to fall apart. The direct manufacturer of the model was WildFactory, a company specializing in industrial concept design (WildFactory was the one who made the motorcycle models for the film “Tron: Legacy” (2010)). The “Bubbleship” model was made mainly of aluminum, is 25 feet (7.6 meters) long and weighs about two tons. This model had many moving parts: rotating engines, opening doors, etc. A rotating cockpit was used during the filming of flight scenes, where the actors had to hang upside down more than once or twice.
- Filming began on March 19, 2012, in Louisiana, in the cities of Baton Rouge and New Orleans. After a short break, the production process continued in the summer of the same year.
- Most of the outdoor shots where Jack flies were filmed in Iceland.
- The prototype for the luxurious air mini-craft “The Bubble Ship,” piloted by Jack, was simply a utilitarian Bell 47 helicopter with a transparent round dome, seen by Joseph Kosinski at an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. It was proposed to combine this “base” with the main principles of the ship’s appearance from the film “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968). And eventually, NASA engineers were brought in to work on it. The full-scale model had doors that opened, and the control panel in the cockpit was created with the consultation of Tom Cruise, who is a licensed pilot.
- After reading the script for "Oblivion," Freeman wanted not only to voice a role but also to appear in the film. Therefore, instead of being straightforward, he told the director he had a sore throat. However, the filmmakers were so eager to have Morgan participate in the project that they cast him anyway.
- Filming of the rebel stronghold – "Crow's Nest" – took place at the Market Street Power Plant, located near Baton Rouge. It is considered the oldest power plant in all of New Orleans. It was built in 1885 and closed approximately 40 years ago.
- Twenty HD projectors formed a clear sky around the tower, displaying 34 independent video clips. The image was broken down into 19 independent layers. The screens turned out to be 12 meters high and over 150 meters long.
- At the beginning of the film, during the “Universal” opening sequence, you can notice the “Tet” orbiting the Earth, which the film will be about.
- Diane Kruger, Hayley Atwell, and Kate Beckinsale were considered for the role of Victoria.
- An old tin can with a sprouting flower was created on special order for Kosinski. The inspiration for this flower was a plant the director accidentally saw during one of his scouting trips to Iceland.
- The film could have ultimately received the name “Horizons” from Universal Studios, but over time they reverted to “Oblivion.” In the case of “Horizons,” the plot would have changed somewhat – becoming more dynamic, as it involved aerial cities and raids by stalkers from them down to the scorched Earth, for potentially useful items.
- Olga Kurylenko suggested making her character French rather than Russian.
- According to the director, the sources of inspiration for the story, comic, and film were the movies "Omega Man," "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Blade Runner," and Dan Simmons' novel "Hyperion."
- Tom Cruise celebrated his 50th birthday at the "Oblivion" set. To mark the occasion, Joseph Kosinski presented the star with one of the futuristic motorcycles directly from the film. Cruise, to everyone's surprise, reciprocated with a gift of his own: a large-scale model (made of high-quality die-cast metal) of the "Bubble Ship" in a glass case.
- In this film, Tom Cruise “updated” his favorite cap of the “New York Yankees” baseball club – for the first time since the film “War of the Worlds” (2005), he appeared in it on the big screen again.
- The film was shot in 4k resolution, but was released in theaters in 2k resolution. The visual effects department simply didn't have enough time to render all the necessary scenes in 4k. They would have needed another month and a half, and the premiere date could not be moved.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
