Sahara (2005 film)

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Sahara

Promotional poster for Sahara
Directed by Breck Eisner
Produced by Stephanie Austin
Howard Baldwin
Karen Baldwin
Mace Neufeld
Written by Clive Cussler (novel)
James V. Hart
Thomas Dean Donnelly
Joshua Oppenheimer
John C. Richards
Starring Matthew McConaughey
Steve Zahn
Penélope Cruz
Lambert Wilson
Lennie James
Delroy Lindo
William H. Macy
Patrick Malahide
Glynn Turman
Rainn Wilson
Music by Clint Mansell
Cinematography Seamus McGarvey
Editing by Andrew MacRitchie
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s) April 8, 2005
Running time 124 min.
Language English
Budget $160 million
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Sahara is a 2005 action/adventure film, directed by Breck Eisner, based on the best-selling book of the same name by Clive Cussler.

Though it opened at #1, grossing $18 million on its first weekend, Sahara is considered one of the biggest financial flops in Hollywood history.[1][2] From the financial perspective, Sahara was unusual because it performed reasonably well, generating $122 million in gross box-office sales.[1] However, the movie was beset by high costs, including a $160-million production and $81.1 million in distribution expenses.[1] The film lost approximately $105 million according to a financial executive assigned to the movie;[2] however Hollywood accounting methods assign losses at $78.3 million, taking into account projected revenue.[1] According to Hollywood accounting, the film drew in revenue of $202.9 million against expenses of $281.2 million.[1]

The Los Angeles Times presented an extensive special report on April 15, 2007 dissecting the budget of Sahara as an example of how Hollywood movies can cost so much to produce and fail; many of the often closely held documents had become public domain due to a lawsuit involving the film.[3]

Contents

[edit] Plot

Marine engineer, explorer and former US Navy Seal Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) travels to Mali, to search for what the locals call "The Ship of Death", the lost Civil War ironclad warship CSS Texas that has a mysterious cargo. Pitt and his longtime friend Al Giordino (Steve Zahn) manage to thwart the assassination of Doctor Eva Rojas (Penélope Cruz), a doctor with the United Nations World Health Organization, who is investigating the source of a disease that is wreaking havoc in the area. The cause is a vast amount of industrial waste that is threatening to cause an environmental disaster. It is up to Pitt and his associates at the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) to locate the source of the pollution and shut it down, and explore the connection between the deaths and the missing ironclad.

Tagline: Dirk Pitt. Adventure has a new name.

[edit] Promotion

To promote the film, actor Matthew McConaughey drove his own personal Airstream trailer (painted with a large Sahara movie poster on each side) across America, stopping at military bases and many events, such as the Daytona 500 (to Grand Marshal the race), premiering the movie to fans, signing autographs, and doing interviews at each stop. The trip's highlights were shown on an E! channel special to coincide with the film's release. McConaughey also kept a running blog of his trip on MTV's entertainment website. Both MTV and the film's distributor, Paramount Pictures, are owned by Viacom.

According to McConaughey, this film was intended to be the first in a franchise of films based on Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels (much like the James Bond film franchise), but the poor box office performance of the film has stalled any plans for a sequel or a franchise.

[edit] Legal problems

In February 2005, Cussler took legal action against Philip Anschutz, the producer, for failing to consult him on the script.[4]

Cussler is suing the film's makers for breach of contract. Producer Anschutz is counter suing Cussler for "alleged blackmail and sabotage attempts against the film prior to its 2005 release." Cussler claims that his initial brief of "absolute control" over the book's adaptation to the big screen was compromised and this contributed to it becoming a box office failure. In a statement to a Los Angeles court, Cussler says, "They deceived me right from the beginning. They kept lying to me... and I just got fed up with it." Anschutz's lawyer believes Cussler's behavior played a big role in the film's financial woes. He says, "It is the height of arrogance for Cussler to take $10 million to make a movie and then torpedo the franchise."

On May 15, 2007 the jury awarded Anschutz $5 million but they also said the judge should decide if Anschutz's company, Bristol Bay Productions should have to pay $8.5 million to Cussler for rights to a second book. On January 8, 2008, Judge John Shook denied Cussler's claim for the $8.5 million, making Cussler solely liable in the case to Bristol Bay Productions for $5 million.

[edit] Trivia

 This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.
Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (April 2008)
  • The real CSS Texas was unfinished when Richmond fell. It was captured intact by Union forces, but never used.
  • Jefferson Davis did not regard the fall of Richmond as the end of the Confederacy. Had a ship been able to escape with a fortune in gold, he would have sent it to another Confederate port, or possibly to Mexico, an ally while ruled by Emperor Maximilian.
  • When Dirk Pitt is explaining the history of the five Confederate gold dollars, he says that Jefferson Davis had them made in 1865 and gave four of them to his top generals: Lee, Stonewall Jackson, J.E.B. Stuart, and "Johnson". Both Jackson and Stuart died before 1865, so it would have been impossible to give the gold coins to them in that year.

[edit] Cast

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e Glenn F. Bunting, $78 million of red ink?, Los Angeles Times, April 15, 2007.
  2. ^ a b Glenn F. Bunting, Jurors hear tales of studio maneuvering, Los Angeles Times, March 5, 2007.
  3. ^ Sahara: Budget melts in the desert, Los Angeles Times, April 15, 2007.
  4. ^ "Don't give him rewrite." - LA Times.com, December 8th 2006

[edit] External links


Preceded by
Sin City		 Box office number-one films of 2005 (USA)
April 10, 2005		 Succeeded by
The Amityville Horror