I checked. Can't believe no one's reviewed this film.
It was fairly decent for the genre.
Made a buck, too.
Budget $110 million
Gross revenue $311,011,944
61% approval @ Rotten Tomatoes, so... fair.
When I first heard of the film the wiki brief on its sordid history already appealed to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_(2010_film)#ProductionWriten for a male lead.
TCruise attached.
TCruise bailed.
AJolie attached.
Re-written to accomodate the gender swap.
Fine.
But the story goes much deeper than changing Edward Salt to Evelyn Salt and is key to this business of re-writing big heavy sequences for a variety of reasons.
Well, you guys oughtta know I'll be hitting the
DVD extra features for director commentary pretty well, so here it comes.
- This is the director Noyce's fiftieth film.
- On-site advisor hired
on set, not ahead of time, to choreograph the prisoner exchange. This means whatever homework the writer did didn't matter in the end. Director was quite willing to change... anything.
- Lead protagonist gender change from male to female lead to a completly different change in the third act due to Jolie's insistance. In other words, consider some actors carry the biz-weight to rewrite your work.
Actor says you gotta re-write.- Even though the director didn't write this story he discusses how he repeats many of his own personal central ideas. Ha!
Previously he stated how he gravitates toward certain spy stories despite reading many of them. The point being that the director will assimilate the writer's work as his own work.
Zero credit goes to the
creator of "the idea" for the kernal of a story.
All the credit goes to the
developer of "the idea".
This is a reiteration of the maxim "ideas are a dime a dozen".
- Jolie, director and writer (Wimmer) worked out a lot of the rewrite of the script. One week at Jolie's place in France and then over months and months afterwards.
- Director goes into an in depth introduction of the elements of film sound and music.
- With permission of SAG, 500 blow-up dolls were used in the church scene with costumes and wigs. I'm surprised that was cheaper than CGIing them in.
- Regarding online piracy, there are three attitudes:
1. OPTIMISTS advocate piracy fosters interest in the film industry
2. There will always be those willing to pay for commercial events just to collectively socialize.
3. PESSIMISTS justly fear as the introduction of worldwide broadband quality achieves a certain level of consistancy the industry will be decimated.
- Studio budget constraints forced the "post church, Salt arrest, escape from police car" sequence to be re-written from a "sixty-story elevator ride to helicopter extraction, window washing scaffold escape" sequence, saving millions.
Studio says you gotta re-write.- Censorship reasons dictated the director's "preferred" Salt-reunited-with-husband scene be substituted with an alternate version. Instead of a brutal drowning he is shot.
MPAA says you gotta re-write.- Took months of work to figure a solution to re-write the script to end Act III in the White House. Salt's plan to stop Day-X was to make herself an essential element of the plot.
- Director stated a certain scene in the script didn't have enough material to create "something really exciting!"
SFX developer saved the sequence. In other words, script went through the studio and director with
known flaws. Even after re-writing.
- Director comments on technical elements (such as Day-X, the nuclear football and bunker beneath the White House) as if their credibility needs to be established.
In other words, the depth of homework for even a big budget film is pretty thin.
These are basic elements of story construct, to me. Real basic.
- "Choking Winter" scene is impromtu, not scripted.
- Director's version has Winter character kill the POTUS to insert Russian KA agent into Presidency.
Bones.
Write a good story with good bones.
A lot of the "decoration" is gonna get changed.
Some pretty large sequences may get ditched for various reasons.