The Mothman Prophecies (film)

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The Mothman Prophecies

Directed by	Mark Pellington
Produced by	Tom Rosenberg Richard Hatem Gary Lucchesi
Written by	Richard Hatem
Starring	Richard Gere Laura Linney Debra Messing Will Patton Lucinda Jenney Bill Laing Alan Bates
Music by	tomandandy
Cinematography	Fred Murphy
Editing by	Brian Berdan
Distributed by	Sony Pictures
Release date(s)	January 25, 2002
Running time	119 min
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$42,000,000 USD (estimated)
Gross revenue	$11,208,851 (USA) £762,516 (UK) €759,713 (Italy)
IMDb profile

The 2002 film The Mothman Prophecies is an adaptation of the 1976 book The Mothman Prophecies by parapsychologist and Fortean John Keel, described as nonfiction.

1 Plot Summary
2 Tagline
3 Differences from the book
4 Trivia
5 External links

[edit] Plot Summary

Richard Gere plays John Klein, a hot shot reporter whose life is suddenly changed after a car accident. It's discovered his wife has a tumor, and will likely die from it. Shortly after his wife's passing, he discovers a strange assortment of drawings she made of a strange creature they encountered the night of the accident. Two years later, John suddenly finds himself in the small town known as Point Pleasant, West Virginia where several people have reported strange supernatural encounters. Along with weird lights, and phone calls, John begins to investigate the encounters and realizes more.

Apparently these strange encounters are from a creature known as the Mothman which foretells cataclysmic events. John realizes there may be a tragedy in store for the small town, but can he stop it before it's too late?

[edit] Tagline

What do you see?

[edit] Differences from the book

The film adaptation of The Mothman Prophecies concentrates more on the personal stories and personalities of the characters and less on the UFOs and other strange phenomena around which much of the book was based.

Most of the book's human cast have also been reimagined. All have been renamed and in some cases several characters have been merged into one or changed in some other way. In other cases, such as the newspaper editor Mary Hyre, they have been removed entirely.

Of the book's supernatural cast the Men in Black have been removed, Indrid Cold, an enigmatic being in the book, changes from a relatively benign figure to something more sinister, and the Mothman itself is barely seen, and appears more to symbolize the film's strangeness than appear as the book's central mystery.[1]

[edit] Trivia

Alexander Leek's name comes from author John A. Keel, Leek being Keel backwards.
The first appearance of Indrid Cold wasn't a digital shot, it was done by blurring the camera.
Leek's story of how he tried to stop the destruction of a building but failed because no one would believe him is very reminiscent of Mark Pellington's last film, Arlington Road
Mark Pellington makes two cameos in this film, one as the bartender and another as the voice of Indrid Cold over the phone.
The clock radio in John Klein's motel room reads: 6:14. It's a biblical reference to John Chapter 6 verse 14, which reads, This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.
The Mothman can be seen six times in the film.
The budget was cut by over $100,000 before filming began.
In the film 36 people are killed in the bridge collapse. In reality 46 died. The studio didn't want to kill so many people, and were scoring in the teens, but Pellington negotiated up to 36.
Aside from a few opening shots filmed in Washington, DC, the entire movie was filmed in the area of Pittsburgh and Kittanning, both in Pennsylvania. The scenes of a despondent Gere sitting on a park bench are on the University of Pittsburgh campus, the road montages are filmed on Pennsylvania Route 28, and the "Chicago" scenes are largely shot in downtown Pittsburgh. However, the Point Pleasant scenes were shot in Kittanning, Pennsylvania. Despite this relocation, several police officers from Point Pleasant appeared as extras in the film. [2]
In one minor goof, the back of a photograph is shown with writing in black permanent marker but when it is flipped again it is shown in green pen.