Holes
Short description
Stanley Yelnats, a teenager from a family that has long been dogged by bad luck, is sent to a juvenile labor camp in the Texas desert after being convicted of a theft he did not commit. At Camp Green Lake, the boys are made to dig large holes in the dry lakebed each day, an activity the staff presents as character building. Stanley comes to suspect that the warden and her overseers are using the inmates to search for something buried, and the mystery ties back to a legend from the area's past and to his own family history.
The film is directed by Andrew Davis and written by Louis Sachar, adapting his own novel. It followed several crime thrillers in Davis's filmography, among them Under Siege (1992), The Fugitive (1993) and Collateral Damage (2002). Shia LaBeouf plays Stanley, with Khleo Thomas as Zero, Sigourney Weaver as the warden, Jon Voight as Mr. Sir, Tim Blake Nelson as Dr. Pendanski and Patricia Arquette as Katherine "Kissin' Kate" Barlow. It was a sizable production, with 51 credited cast members and 439 credited crew.
Made for about 20 million dollars, it took roughly 71 million dollars worldwide, a solid return. It holds a rating of 7 out of 10 on IMDb from around 109,000 votes, and 6.9 out of 10 on TMDB, while a critics' rating of 7.2 out of 10, drawn from 138 reviews, sits slightly above the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- A local resident in a classroom in one of the scenes is Brian Peck, who was busy working on acting coaching for the young actors involved in the film.
- The initial screenplay was written by Richard Kelly, who deviated significantly from the source material, writing a dark, harsh, and even brutal adaptation set in a post-apocalyptic future. The film studio deemed it unsuitable for a children's film and rejected it, favoring the version of the book's author, Louis Sachar.
- The original novel of the same name by Louis Sachar, first published in 1998, was awarded the Newbery Medal, the most prestigious American award in children's literature.
- Stanley Yelnats Sr. (the main character’s grandfather) was played by Nathan Davis, the father of director Andrew Davis.
- Frankie Muniz was initially invited to play the lead role. Alex D. Linz was also considered for the role.
- Sigourney Weaver very much wanted to star in the film because Louis Sachar’s book was then her daughter’s favorite.
- The author of the book and the final screenplay, American writer Louis Sachar, appears in a cameo with his wife and daughter in the scene where Sam sells onion juice.
- The film is dedicated to the memory of actor Scott Plank, who passed away several months after filming ended.
- In the guard's house at the camp, you can notice a newspaper clipping framed with the headline “Kate Barlow Robs ‘Chicago Pacific’.” ‘Chicago Pacific’ is a company owned by director Andrew Davis.
- The venomous lizards in the film were actually bearded dragons, slightly modified with makeup and computer graphics, and provided by Sandfire Dragon Ranch, a reptile and amphibian breeding facility located in California. Such venomous and deadly lizards do not exist in nature and are a pure invention of the book's author. A total of nine bearded dragons were used for filming, and highly realistic static models were made for some scenes.
- Before starting work on the film, Patricia Arquette couldn’t ride a horse at all and had to learn this not-so-simple skill.
- The onions that Stanley and Zero eat were actually ordinary apples wrapped in an edible shell.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
