Thank You for Smoking
All team (149)
Short description
Nick Naylor works as a spokesman for the tobacco industry, defending smoking in public even though he privately sees nothing good about it. His job brings him into conflict with a senator who wants cigarette packs marked with a skull and crossbones, and with health campaigners who oppose him. At the same time, he is raising his young son and wants to be a father the boy can look up to, which becomes harder as his work draws more attention. The film follows his efforts to keep doing his job while dealing with these pressures.
Thank You for Smoking is a comedy drama directed by Jason Reitman, who also wrote the screenplay. It was his first feature as director and stands at the start of a filmography that continued with Juno, Up in the Air, Young Adult, Labor Day, Men, Women & Children, Tully, The Front Runner, Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Saturday Night. Aaron Eckhart plays Nick Naylor, with Maria Bello, Cameron Bright, Adam Brody, Sam Elliott and Katie Holmes in supporting roles. David O. Sacks produced, and the credited cast numbers 46 with 149 crew members.
Made for about 7 million dollars, the film took roughly 39 million dollars worldwide, a strong return on its budget. On IMDb it holds 7.5 out of 10 from around 235,000 votes, while on TMDB it has 7.2 out of 10 from about 2,500 votes. A critics' rating of 7.6 out of 10 from 182 reviews places it close to the audience scores. It runs 92 minutes and was released in 2005.
What's left behind the scenes
- Jason Reitman (the film's director) wrote personalized letters to each of the main actors, explaining why they were perfectly suited for their respective roles. All the actors Reitman intended to cast in the lead roles agreed to appear in the film and thanked him for the letters.
- The black-and-white film that Naylor watches shortly before the end of the movie is "The Sands of Iwo Jima" (1949).
- Throughout the film, no one on screen smokes, with the exception of the characters in the black-and-white film that Naylor is watching. Furthermore, none of the characters hold a cigarette throughout the entire film; only in one scene does Naylor have an empty cigarette pack in his hands, and Robert Duvall holds an unlit cigar.
- Christopher Buckley, who wrote the original novel, can be spotted at a subway station reading an article by Heather about Nick.
- All scenes with Rob Lowe were filmed in one day.
- While Nick Naylor and his son Joey are waiting to meet Jeff Megall, they are watching the BBC documentary television series "The Blue Planet" (2001).
- When the rights to Christopher Buckley's novel were acquired in the mid-90s, Mel Gibson was the main candidate for the lead role.
- Sam Elliott insisted that his character refuse the money. It took Jason Reitman three hours to convince him to play the role exactly as written in the script.
- The film is based on Christopher Buckley's novel "Thank You for Smoking" (1994).
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