8MM
Short description
8MM follows Tom Welles, a private investigator in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania who takes on routine surveillance and adultery cases while supporting his wife and young daughter. A wealthy widow hires him to examine a reel of film found in her late husband's safe. The footage appears to show the murder of a young woman, and she wants to know whether the crime was real, who the victim was, and who made the film. Welles identifies the girl and traces her to California, where he meets Max, a struggling musician employed in an adult shop who guides him through the pornographic underworld. As the investigation becomes an obsession, Welles is drawn away from his ordinary home life.
Joel Schumacher directed and produced the film, working from a screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker. It was Schumacher's eleventh film as director, following Batman & Robin and preceding Flawless. Nicolas Cage plays Welles, with Joaquin Phoenix as Max California, James Gandolfini as Eddie Poole, Peter Stormare as Dino Velvet, Anthony Heald as Longdale and Chris Bauer as Machine. The production had a budget of 40 million dollars and took about 97 million dollars worldwide.
Ages and ratings point to a mixed response: on IMDb it holds 6.6 out of 10 from around 151,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.5 out of 10 from roughly 2,400 votes, while the film critics' rating stands at 5 out of 10 from 83 reviews, placing the critics below the general audience.
What's left behind the scenes
- Initially, David Fincher was considered to direct the film.
- Studio executives had some doubts about the film’s overly oppressive atmosphere and subject matter. Endr Kevin Walker was asked to make the script less bleak, but he decided that Joel Schumacher would handle it perfectly well without his help. He proved to be right. The director fully agreed with management’s opinion. Schumacher made changes to the script, which led to a quarrel between him and Walker, widely covered by the press. Walker became so enraged that he didn’t even watch the edited film.
- The buildings covered in graffiti shown in the film are all that remains of the structures built by Howard Hughes (1905-1976) for radar installations.
- Filming took place from February 3rd to May 15th, 1998.
- Mary Ann Matthews played Jenny Powell, a stripper hired as a body double. Powell's appearance pleased director Joel Schumacher so much that he "promoted" her and made her the victim.
- Eddie Paul drives a Stutz Blackhawk, a luxury car produced from 1971 to 1987. Many celebrities owned these cars, such as Elvis Presley (1935-1977) and Frank Sinatra (1915-1998). There was a real battle between Presley and Sinatra for the very first car of this make, and it went to the King of Rock and Roll.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
