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A Sound of Thunder (film)

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A Sound of Thunder
Theatrical release poster
Directed byPeter Hyams
Screenplay by
Based on"A Sound of Thunder"
by Ray Bradbury
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyPeter Hyams
Edited bySylvie Landra
Music byNick Glennie-Smith
Production
companies
Distributed by
Release date
  • September 2, 2005 (2005-9-2) (United States)
Running time
101 minutes
Countries
  • Czech Republic
  • Germany
  • United Kingdom
  • United States
Languages
  • English
  • Mandarin
Budget$80 million[2]
Box office$11.7 million[2]

A Sound of Thunder is a 2005 science fiction thriller film directed by Peter Hyams. It is based on the 1952 short story of the same name by Ray Bradbury. The film stars Edward Burns, Catherine McCormack, and Ben Kingsley. It follows "time tourists" who accidentally interfere too much with the past, completely altering the present.[1]

A Sound of Thunder was released in the United States on September 2, 2005, by Warner Bros. Pictures. It failed at the box office, earning only $11.8 million against a production budget of $80 million, and received largely negative reviews from critics.[3]

Plot

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In the year 2055, time travel (referred to as "time jumping") has been perfected but the process is dangerous and unpredictable. Charles Hatton (Ben Kingsley) creates a "Time Safari" service, offering the opportunity for wealthy clients to travel to prehistorical days and hunt dinosaurs; the expedition, led by Travis Ryer (Edward Burns) is set under very specific rules to avoid altering history: their targets are a set of dinosaurs as well as Allosaurus was bogged down into the swamp and dies that will imminently be killed by lava from an erupting volcano, frozen nitrogen bullets are used as ammo to leave no trace, and the party wears self-contained suits and told to stay on a floating path and to not touch anything. Further, all the guns are tied to Ryer's weapon, and will not fire until he does so.

During one trip while escorting clients Eckles (William Armstrong) and Middleton (Corey Johnson), Ryer's gun fails as their target Allosaurus rushes the party. Ryer tells the tourists to take cover while he corrects the weapon in time to kill the Allosaurus. Ryer removes the traces of their presence and quickly takes the tourists back to the present, unaware that Middleton had accidentally stepped off the path while taking cover. On a subsequent trip to the same point in time with a different group, Ryer is shocked to find that events have changed as the Allosaurus is already dead and the volcano has erupted too soon.

When Ryer returns to reports this, "Time Safari" is immediately shut down by the federal agency that oversees time travel technology. Ryer seeks out Sonia Rand (Catherine McCormack), the inventor of the time travel technology. Rand had long had reservations about "Time Safari", and worries that events will play out as she had predicted. Suddenly, the two feel themselves caught in a wave front, which Rand later identifies as a time wave that is a result of the changes in the past. It causes the vegetation and animal life in her greenhouse to grow rapidly and dangerously, forcing the two to evacuate. Rand warns several more time waves can be expected, each affecting more advanced parts of life and eventually to humans themselves.

Returning to Time Safari, the federal agency works with Ryer and Hatton to send Ryer back to the past to try to correct it. Instead, the time travel leaves Ryer in the Native American Southwest during the 18th century; he quickly returns to the present as another time wave hits, knocking power out from the building and leaving the city covered in dense vegetation. Which means: swarm of beetles and packs of Baboonlizards with group of giant bats and aquatic man-eating eels. The team's technician Payne (David Oyelowo) discovers that one of the tourists on the earlier expedition came back from the past one gram heavier. Though such discrepancies would have been found with the required "bio-filter" on their return, Hatton had paid off a federal agent to avoid the costly process. Ryer and Rand track down Eckles and Middleton as they fight through deadly creatures that have come about due to the time waves. They confirm that Middleton had stepped off the path, crushing a butterfly on the sole of his shoe, and thus has altered history.

When another time wave completely severes power to the Time Safari time portal, the group realizes the only option is to travel to the nearby university to use its particle accelerator like a time machine to send someone back to intercept the original expedition and prevent Middleton from stepping off the path. The remaining humans struggle through the hostile terrain that the city has become, and soon only Ryer and Rand are left alive. Rand is able to make the modifications and send Ryer back in time just as a time wave hits, leaving her a catfish-like humanoid.

In the prehistoric path, Ryer successfully intercepts the hunting party while handing over a video recording he made prior to his arrival. Ryer catches Middleton who crushes into the butterfly and vanishes while screaming. The group of Time Safari, Inc. returning immediately to the future, this future version of Ryer disappears. Back in the present, Ryer observes the video tape from himself, and takes it to Rand. They agree that the video contains enough evidence to put an end to Time Safari.

Cast

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Production

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The film was originally going to be directed by Renny Harlin, star Pierce Brosnan in the main role,[4] and be shot in Montreal, Canada.[5] The budget was meant to be $55 million.[6]

Filming was to have begun in Montreal on 16 April 2001. Brosnan wanted a rewrite of the script. However, the filmmakers did not have time to rewrite and finish the film by July 1, which is when Hollywood writers and actors were poised to go on strike. Matters were complicated when Canadian producer Nicolas Claremont died in April 2001.[7]

By November 2001 Harlin had been replaced by Peter Hyams.[8][9] Brosnan left the project as well and was replaced by Edward Burns.

After Franchise Pictures went bankrupt during post-production, the remaining backers provided only $30 million to work with,[10] out of the $80 million originally allocated. Previsualization software was used.[11]

Filming

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Shooting took place in the Czech Republic in 2002. The unit was affected by the August 2002 floods.[12]

Kingsley said "I was allowed to give a very ironic comedic performance. I was able to make my director (Peter Hyams) stifle a huge amount of laughter behind the camera."[13]

Director Peter Hyams said the effects were done "in a mom-and-pop fashion. That's the only way we could make this film for a reasonable amount of money. We had stuff done in Germany, Hong Kong, India. We've also taken a long time to get it all completed. The post-production on this film will be over two years by the time we're finished. I myself will have worked on it for three years."[14]

Hyams' son John later said "it was one of the hardest experiences of his [father's] career. You know, it’s got to be a real sinking feeling going into something shooting all of it against green screen with all this trust that you’re relying on this whole element, this whole technology that ultimately you’re not going to be able to afford and you have to do it anyway."[15]

Video game

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A video game based on the film was released for the Game Boy Advance. It had been considerably delayed, and debuted slightly before the film opened, in March 2005.[16] It was an overhead shooter game with driving stages, and support for co-op and death-match multiplayer via link cable. Many people considered the video game to be better than the film it was based on. A game for PlayStation 2 and Xbox was planned in 2003 but got canceled.[17]

Reception

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Critical response

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The film was largely panned by both critics and audiences alike. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 6% score based on 98 reviews, with an average rating of 2.8/10. The site's consensus states: "Choppy logic and uneven performances are overshadowed by not-so-special effects that makes the suspension of disbelief a nearly impossible task."[18] Common criticisms against the film included its poor special effects, uninvolved performances, scientific errors and Ben Kingsley's hair.[19][20][21] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "D−" on scale of A+ to F.[22]

James Duffy of The Boston Globe stated "The combination of awful special effects and mediocre acting created this catastrophe," and it included the film in its list of "Bomb at the box office".[23] Roger Ebert stated that while he "cannot endorse it, [he] can appreciate it" as a film that is bad because it "want[s] so much to be terrific that [it] explode[s] under the strain."[24]

At the 2005 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, the film was nominated for Worst Director, Worst Supporting Actor (Kingsley), Most Intrusive Musical Score, and Least "Special" Special Effects, but it won none of those awards.

Box office

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Due to negative reviews and lack of promotion, the production grossed only $1,900,451 in the United States and $9,765,014 elsewhere for a worldwide total of $11,665,465.[2]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b "A Sound of Thunder". www.filmcommission.cz. Retrieved August 5, 2016.
  2. ^ a b c "A Sound of Thunder". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved February 2, 2013.
  3. ^ "The Notorious 2005 Ray Bradbury Adaptation A Sound of Thunder Deserves Its Reputation as One of the Biggest All-Time Flops". Nathan Rabin's Happy Place. April 7, 2023.
  4. ^ Braket, Scot (December 19, 2000). "Renny Harlin and Pierce Brosnan Hear A Sound of Thunder". IGN. Retrieved March 17, 2014.
  5. ^ "Producer's Nightmare: A Sound of Thunder - 2005 - Peter Hyams". Producersnightmare.blogspot.ca. Retrieved March 17, 2014.
  6. ^ Hustak, Alan (February 8, 2001). "Hollywood comes north: Montreal's film industry is in high gear as actors' strike looms in the U.S.". Montreal Gazette. p. C7.
  7. ^ Kelly, Brendan (April 13, 2001). "Movie producer Clermont dies at 59". Montreal Gazette. p. D1.
  8. ^ Black, Zoe (November 18, 2001). "Showbiz Gossip". Wales on Sunday. Cardiff UK. p. 7.
  9. ^ Florence 2005, p. 21.
  10. ^ "A Sound of Thunder". CGSociety. Archived from the original on March 17, 2014. Retrieved March 17, 2014.
  11. ^ Skweres, Mary Ann (September 2, 2005). "'A Sound of Thunder': Combining the Futuristic with the Prehistoric". Animation World Network.
  12. ^ Meils, Cathy (August 26, 2002). "Film/International: Czech Republic: Watery Biz Stumps for Czech Flood Aid". Variety. Vol. 388, no. 2. New York, N. Y. p. 16.
  13. ^ "Gandhi steps into sci-fi roles". The Province. Vancouver, B.C. September 28, 2003. p. B15.
  14. ^ Florence 2005, p. 22.
  15. ^ Daniels, Hunter (December 6, 2012). "Director John Hyams Talks UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING, Plus the Top 11 Things to Know About Hyams and His Film". Collider.
  16. ^ "A Sound of Thunder". IGN. December 5, 2002. Archived from the original on March 17, 2014. Retrieved March 17, 2014.
  17. ^ "First look: A Sound of Thunder Xbox and PS2". GameSpot. Retrieved August 4, 2024.
  18. ^ "A Sound of Thunder". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved November 22, 2015.
  19. ^ Scott, A.O. (September 2, 2005). "Scientists Wrestle With a Very, Very Big Wrinkle in Time". The New York Times.
  20. ^ Barsanti, Chris. "A Sound of Thunder Movie Review, DVD Release". Filmcritic.com. Archived from the original on August 2, 2008.
  21. ^ Ramsey, Mark (September 5, 2005). "A Sound of Thunder". Movie Juice. Archived from the original on March 3, 2012. Retrieved February 9, 2020.
  22. ^ "Sound of Thunder, A (2005) D-". CinemaScore. Archived from the original on December 20, 2018.
  23. ^ Duffy, James (August 2, 2006). "Movies That Were Box Office Bombs". boston.com.
  24. ^ Ebert, Roger (February 5, 2013). Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2007. Andrews McMeel Publishing. pp. 648–. ISBN 9780740792199. Retrieved November 22, 2015.

Bibliography

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  • Florence, Phil (October 2005). "Rolling Thunder". Starlog. pp. 20–23.
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