10,000 BC (film)

This article is about Roland Emmerich's 2008 film. For the millennium, see 10th millennium BC.
10,000 BC

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Roland Emmerich
Produced by Roland Emmerich
Mark Gordon
Michael Wimer
Written by Roland Emmerich
Harald Kloser
Starring Steven Strait
Camilla Belle
Cliff Curtis
Joel Virgel
Nathanael Baring
Affif Ben Badra
Marco Khan
Tim Barlow
Narrated by Omar Sharif
Music by Harald Kloser
Thomas Wander
Cinematography Ueli Steiger
Edited by Alexander Berner
Production
company
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
Release dates
  • March 7, 2008 (2008-03-07)
Running time
 109 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $105 million
Box office $269.8 million

10,000 BC is a 2008 American epic adventure film from Warner Bros. Pictures set in the prehistoric era. It was directed by Roland Emmerich and stars Steven Strait and Camilla Belle. The world premiere was held on February 10, 2008 at Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin.[1][2]

Plot

In about 10,000 BC, a tribe of hunter-gatherers called the Yagahl live in a remote mountain range in the Urals and survive by killing woolly mammoths. The camp is led by a hunter who has proven his bravery by killing a mammoth, and taking the White Spear. The people also strongly venerate an elderly woman, called Old Mother.

D'Leh, a young hunter, while hunting mammoths, manages to kill one and wins the White Spear. He also wins his companion Evolet in marriage. Horse-raiders attack the camp, enslaving Evolet and several others. D'Leh and three companions rescue Evolet, but she is recaptured with two of the companions. D'Leh and Tic'Tic, the remaining companion, continue on and learn of a prophecy from a tribe they meet: whoever talks to a Smilodon that they call the "Spear-Tooth" will help free their people. D'Leh realizes the prophecy was about him.

Several tribes agree to form a coalition to pursue the raiders. They find the ship holding Evolet. With no means to follow the ships, they journey through a vast desert, discovering an advanced civilization similar to ancient Egypt, ruled by an enigmatic figure known as "The Almighty". Tic'Tic dies from injuries sustained in a fight with the guards before they can raise the alarm. The Almighty's priests believe that Evolet is destined to kill The Almighty. D'Leh starts a rebellion among the slaves.

The Almighty offers Evolet and the other hunters to D'Leh in exchange for abandoning his rebellion. D'Leh feigns acceptance of the deal but throws a spear at The Almighty and kills him. During the ensuing battle, Evolet dies, but is restored by the Old Mother sacrificing her own life. They bid farewell to the other tribes and return home.

Cast

  • Steven Strait as D'Leh (an anagram for "Held" which is in German, Dutch and Afrikaans the word for "hero"), a mammoth hunter.
  • Camilla Belle as Evolet, D'Leh's wife and the only survivor of a tribe which was killed off by the "Four Legged Demons" (fierce warriors on horseback). She is unique as she has blue eyes.
  • Cliff Curtis as Tic'Tic, D'Leh's mentor and friend.[3]
  • Joel Virgel as Nakudu, leader of the Naku tribe.
  • Affif Ben Badra as Warlord, leader of the "Four Legged Demons."
  • Mo Zinal as Ka'Ren
  • Nathanael Baring as Baku
  • Marco Khan as One-Eye, Warlord's main henchman.
  • Mona Hammond as Old Mother, the Yagahl wise old woman.
  • Joel Fry as Lu'Kibu
  • Reece Ritchie as Moha
  • Piers Stubbs as Young Moha
  • Junior Oliphant as Tudu, Nakudu's son.
  • Kristian Beazley as D'Leh's father, who had lived with the Naku tribe and learned agriculture from them.
  • Boubacar Badaine as Quina, leader of another tribe.
  • Tim Barlow as The Almighty, a tall, blue eyed man who dresses in long white robes and a face-concealing veil. He is the last of three kings, and the last of the Atlanteans.
  • Omar Sharif as Narrator

Development

Visual and sound effects

The mammoths in the movie were based on elephants and fossils of mammoths, while the sabertooth cat was based on tigers and ligers (a lion/tiger hybrid).[4]

The sounds made by the sabertooth cat in the movie are based on the vocalization of tigers and lions.[5]

Casting

Emmerich opened casting sessions in late October 2005.[6] In February 2006, Camilla Belle and Steven Strait were announced to star in the film, with Strait as the mammoth hunter and Belle as his love.[7] Emmerich decided that casting well known actors would distract from the realistic feel of the prehistoric setting. "If like, Jake Gyllenhaal turned up in a movie like this, everybody would be, 'What's that?' " he explained. The casting of unknown actors also helped keep the film's budget down.[8]

Production

At the 2008 Wondercon, Emmerich mentioned the fiction of Robert E. Howard as a primary influence for the film's setting, as well as his love for Quest for Fire and the book Fingerprints of the Gods.[9]

Director Roland Emmerich and composer Harald Kloser originally penned a script for 10,000 BC. When the project received the greenlight from Columbia Pictures, screenwriter John Orloff began work on a new draft of the original script. Columbia Pictures, under Sony Pictures Entertainment, dropped the project due to a busy release calendar, and Warner Bros. picked up the project in Sony's vacancy.[10] The script went through a second revision with Matthew Sand and a final revision with Robert Rodat.[7]

Production began in early 2006 in South Africa and Namibia.[7] Location filming also took place in southern New Zealand[11] and Thailand. Before shooting began, the production had spent eighteen months on research and development for the computer generated imagery. Two companies recreated prehistoric animals. To cut time (it was taking sixteen hours to render a single frame) 50% of the CGI models' fur was removed, as "it turned out half the fur looked the same" to the director.[8]

Language

Emmerich rejected making the film in an ancient language (similar to The Passion of the Christ or Apocalypto), deciding that it would not be as emotionally engaging.[12]

Dialect coach Brendan Gunn was hired by Emmerich and Kloser to create "a half dozen" languages for the film.[13] Gunn has stated that he collaborated informally with film lead Steven Strait to improvise what the languages would sound like.[14]

Alternate ending

In an alternate ending, the scene shifts forward many years into the future, showing Baku's retelling of the story by the camp fire. It ends with a child asking what had happened to the "Mountains of the Gods", and Baku responds, "They were taken back by the sands. Lost to time, lost to man".

Reception

The film received largely negative reviews from critics, stating that the movie is mainly visual and lacks a firm screenplay. Critics noted that the film is archaeologically inaccurate and contains many factual errors and anachronisms. As of December 16, 2014, the review aggregator at Rotten Tomatoes has reported that 8% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 145 reviews with the consensus: "With attention strictly paid to style instead of substance, or historical accuracy, 10,000 BC is a visually impressive but narratively flimsy epic."[15] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 34 out of 100, based on 29 reviews.[16]

Composer Thomas Wanker won a BMI Film Music Award for his work on the film.

Comparisons to other works

Glenn Whipp of the Los Angeles Daily News draws numerous comparisons between 10,000 BC and other films in the prehistoric and historic film genre, especially One Million Years B.C. (1966)[17] and Apocalypto (2006).[18][19] A. O. Scott of The New York Times compared it to John Ford's film The Searchers (1956) and the animated film Ice Age (2002).[20]

The film was parodied in the opening scene of Disaster Movie.

Box office performance

Despite the critical failure, the film was a box office success. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $35.8 million in 3,410 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking No. 1 at the box office, and grossing over $22 million more than the film in second place, College Road Trip.[21][22] As of April 29, 2008, it has grossed approximately $268.6 million worldwide – $94.6 million in the United States and Canada and $174 million in other territories[23] – including $17.2 million in Mexico, $13.1 million in Spain, $11.3 million in the United Kingdom, and $10.8 million in China. This also makes it the first film of 2008 to surpass the $200 million mark.[24]

DVD release

The DVD of the film was released on June 24, 2008 in single disc editions of DVD and Blu-ray Disc in the United States. Best Buy released a 2-disc limited edition along with the DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases. It was released on July 21, 2008 in the United Kingdom.[25] The film grossed $31,341,721 in DVD sales, bringing its total film gross to $300,414,491.[26]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Welt Online (February 26, 2008). "Emmerich feiert Start seines Steinzeit-Films (German)". Die Welt. Retrieved March 11, 2008.
  2. ↑ Hilary Whiteman (March 3, 2008). "10,000 BC: The premiere (English)". CNN. Archived from the original on March 7, 2008. Retrieved March 11, 2008.
  3. ↑ Shawn Adler (June 29, 2007). "Emmerich Heads Back In Time For '10000 B.C.'". MTV. Archived from the original on July 2, 2007. Retrieved July 11, 2007.
  4. ↑ "Introduction to Inside "10,000 BC" - HowStuffWorks". HowStuffWorks. Retrieved February 27, 2015.
  5. ↑ "10,000 B.C. – Exclusive Interview with Supervising Sound Editors Simon Gershon and Jeremy Price". Retrieved February 27, 2015.
  6. ↑ Michael Fleming (October 5, 2005). "Sci-fi guy follows primal instinct". Variety. Retrieved August 20, 2006.
  7. 1 2 3 Borys Kit (February 27, 2006). "Strait, Belle fight for mankind". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on March 13, 2006. Retrieved August 20, 2006.
  8. 1 2 Adam Smith (January 2008). "News Etc.". Empire. p. 16.
  9. ↑ "WonderCon 2008: Day 2 - Part 1! - ComingSoon.net". ComingSoon.net. Retrieved February 27, 2015.
  10. ↑ Pamela McClintock (January 30, 2006). "Warners goes on time trek". Variety. Retrieved August 20, 2006.
  11. ↑ "Principal Photography Commences on the Epic Adventure 10,000 B.C, Directed by Roland Emmerich for Warner Bros. Pictures". Forbes. May 9, 2006. Retrieved August 20, 2006.
  12. ↑ "Exclusive CS Featurette: 10,000 BC". ComingSoon.net. March 5, 2008. Archived from the original on September 9, 2009. Retrieved March 5, 2008.
  13. ↑ "Steven – Online II Press Archive". steven-online.org. Archived from the original on January 21, 2010. Retrieved February 2, 2010.
  14. ↑ Gunn, Brendan (January 13, 2008). "How I told Brad Pitt to mind his language – Telegraph". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved February 2, 2010.
  15. ↑ "10,000 B.C. – Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures – Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on March 9, 2008. Retrieved March 7, 2008.
  16. ↑ "10,000 B.C. (2008): Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on March 6, 2008. Retrieved March 7, 2008.
  17. ↑ Glenn Whipp (March 7, 2008). "Cheesy '10,000 B.C.' adheres closely to Ten Commandments of prehistoric movies". Los Angeles Daily News. Archived from the original on March 12, 2008. Retrieved March 7, 2008.
  18. ↑ Alex Markerson (March 8, 2008). "10,000 B.C. E! Reviews". E! Reviews. Archived from the original on March 8, 2008. Retrieved March 8, 2008.
  19. ↑ Ty Burr, Globe Staff (March 8, 2008). "Yabba-dabba-don't". Boston Globe. Retrieved March 8, 2008.
  20. ↑ A. O. Scott (March 7, 2008). "Human Civilization: The Prequel". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 15, 2008. Retrieved April 6, 2008.
  21. ↑ "10,000 B.C. (2008) – Weekend Box Office Results". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved March 16, 2008.
  22. ↑ "'10,000 B.C.' roars to top of box office". CNN. Archived from the original on June 5, 2008. Retrieved March 9, 2008.
  23. ↑ "10,000 B.C. (2008)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved April 6, 2008.
  24. ↑ "10,000 B.C. (2008) – International Box Office Results". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved March 30, 2008.
  25. ↑ Play.com http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/5305386/10-000-BC/Product.html
  26. ↑ "10,000 B.C.". Retrieved February 27, 2015.

External links

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