Coordinates | 47°09′25″N27°35′25″N |
---|---|
name | The Phantom |
director | Simon Wincer |
producer | Alan Ladd, Jr.Robert EvansJoe DanteBruce SherlockGraham Burke |
writer | Jeffrey Boam |
based on | |
starring | Billy ZaneKristy SwansonCatherine Zeta-JonesTreat WilliamsJames RemarPatrick McGoohan |
music | David Newman |
cinematography | David Burr |
editing | O. Nicholas BrownBryan H. Carroll |
studio | The Ladd CompanyVillage Roadshow Pictures |
distributor | Paramount Pictures |
released | |
runtime | 100 minutes |
country | |
language | English |
budget | $45 million |
gross | $17,323,326 (USA) }} |
Despite being a financial disappointment in its theatrical release, the film has since enjoyed success on VHS and DVD.
In 1939, Kit Walker (Billy Zane), the 21st Phantom, finds the man who killed his father, Quill (James Remar) searching for one of the powerful Skulls of Touganda in the jungles of Bengalla. The Phantom manages to arrest Quill's men and save the young native they kidnapped to act as their guide, but Quill succeeds in retrieving the Skull and returning to the United States of America. Meanwhile, in New York City, Kit's ex-girlfriend Diana Palmer (Kristy Swanson) is asked by her Uncle Dave (Bill Smitrovich) to travel to Bengalla in order to investigate claims that businessman Xander Drax (Treat Williams), Quill's boss, is resorting to piracy in order to locate a source of extraordinary power.
On her way to the Island, her airplane is attacked by a group of air pirates also obeying Drax, led by Sala (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who kidnapps Diana and takes her to a boat in order to stop her from further investigating. The Phantom is told of Diana's kidnapping by his friend and her contact, Capitain Phillip Horton (Robert Coleby). The Phantom then sets to rescue her.
He invades the boat, rescues Diana and escapes on a hydroplane, but the vehicle is shot by Quill and starts leaking fuel, so the Phantom and Diana jump out of it onto the Phantom's horse Hero as the plane explodes behind then. They are then chased by a jeep driven by Quill, but escape thanks to the help of the Bandar tribe. The Phantom then takes Diana to his headquarters, the Skull Cave, where she meets with Captain Horton and is returned to New York.
The Phantom then travels to New York as Kit and meets with Diana, who is unaware of his secret identity. They locate the second Skull in a museum, but are captured by Drax and his men, who steal the second Skull and unite it with the first, thus discovering that the third one is located in a island on the Yellow Sea. Diana is taken there by Drax, Sala and Quill, while Kit escapes and follows them as the Phantom.
In the island, Drax meets with Kabai Singh, who possesses the third Skull. Their meeting is interrupted by the Phantom. Kabai Singh is killed when he falls into a pool full of sharks. The Phantom defeats Drax's men alongside Diana and Sala, who has switched sides due to being in love with the Phantom. Drax, however, manages to locate the third Skull and unite it with the two others, unleashing a dark force that he tries to use to destroy the Phantom.
However, it turns out that the Phantom's skull ring is the fourth and most powerful of the Skulls, which he uses to destroy Drax and incinerate the Singh Brotherhood's headquarters. Sala leaves in her hydroplane to start anew, as the Phantom reveals his secret identity to Diana. The Phantom vows to marry Diana one day but she returns to New York City as the Phantom stays behind to continue protecting Bengalla.
Joe Dante was originally attached to direct a Phantom film for Paramount Pictures in the early 1990s, and he developed a draft of the script together with Jeffrey Boam. However, when Paramount pushed the film back a year, Dante left for other commitments, and eventually ended up being credited as one of the executive producers. Joel Schumacher was considered to direct the film, but the job was given to Simon Wincer, who had been a fan of the character since childhood.
Wincer then cast Billy Zane, who had won praise for his work as a psychopath in Dead Calm, as the Phantom. Zane, a fan of the comic strip after being introduced to it on the set of Dead Calm, won the part after competition from Bruce Campbell and Kiwi actor Kevin Smith. After his casting, he feverishly pumped iron for over a year and a half to get the right muscular look of the Phantom. He also studied the character's body language in comic strip artwork, carefully imitating it in his performance. A Batman-like costume with moulded muscles was made for him to wear, but by the time filming started, Zane was so beefed up that he did not need it.
The Los Angeles Zoo in Griffith Park doubled for New York City's Central Park Zoo, the setting for a chase sequence. Shooting continued on Hollywood studio backlot streets that recreated the 1938 version of New York. Over fifty vintage cars were used on the streets, and four hundred extras costumed in authentic period clothing were employed.
In October, the production traveled to Thailand for seven weeks of filming there, with the country doubling as the Phantom's fictional home country Bengalla. Action scenes such as the Phantom saving a boy from a collapsing rope bridge were filmed here. Production designer Paul Peters changed a deserted warehouse in the town Krabi into a large sound stage, where the Phantom's Skull Cave abode was erected, including his Chronicle Chamber, vault, and radio and treasure rooms.
In December the crew traveled to Brisbane, Australia, where production was completed at Warner Roadshow Movie World Studios. The Phantom filmed on three stages, including Stage 5 which had a removable floor and deep-water tanks. Here the Singh Pirates Cave was constructed, constituting the largest interior setting ever built in the country. The New York offices of Xander Drax were constructed on Stage 6. Filming in Queensland also took the production to the Brisbane City Hall, where the interior lobby was redecorated to resemble a New York museum, where Kit Walker finds one of the three Skulls of Touganda.
On the final day of shooting, the production relocated to Los Angeles, to complete a scene that would ultimately end up deleted from the final cut of the movie, where the Phantom wrestles a lion. The movie wrapped on February 13, 1996.
The more realistic plots of Falk's original stories were dropped in favour of an adventure tale that featured the supernatural Skulls of Touganda. Falk's story The Belt, where the Phantom fights the killer of his father, was also a major influence on the story. However, the name of the murderer is changed from Rama to Quill, and the 20th Phantom, played by Patrick McGoohan, is portrayed as a much older man in the film than he was in the comic strip.
The film suffered the same fate as two other period-piece comic book/pulp adaptations of the '90s, The Shadow (1994) and The Rocketeer (1991), and did not fare very well at the box office in the U.S., debuting at number six the weekend of June 7, 1996. However, it has since sold well on VHS and DVD.
Reviews were mixed with Roger Ebert calling it one of the best looking movies he had ever seen, giving the film three and a half stars out of four. Kim Newman wrote for Empire Magazine that the movie "has a pleasant feel - few superheroes have been as sunny and optimistic - as Zane breezes through chases and fights, stops for the odd quip - and pals around with a heroic horse, a dashing dog and the helpful ghost of his father", and gave the movie three out of five stars. The film currently holds a 43% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 42 reviews.
Billy Zane's performance was praised by filmmaker James Cameron, who chose him to be in Titanic because of it.
On September 6, 2008, the syndicated gossip columnist Liz Smith wrote that Paramount Pictures were putting a sequel to The Phantom into development, with Billy Zane, Kristy Swanson, and Catherine Zeta-Jones returning as actors, due to the good VHS tape and DVD sales of the first movie. Her statements were proven to be wrong on December 16, 2008, when it was announced that a reboot of the Phantom series is in the works, called The Phantom Legacy. The new movie is produced by Bruce Sherlock, who was also the executive-producer of The Phantom. The screenwriter is Tim Boyle.
Category:The Phantom Category:1996 films Category:1990s action films Category:American action films Category:Australian action films Category:English-language films Category:Films based on comic strips Category:Films directed by Simon Wincer Category:Films set in the 1930s Category:Fantasy films Category:Superhero films Category:Village Roadshow Pictures films Category:Paramount Pictures films Category:Films set in a fictional country
de:Das Phantom (1996) et:Fantoom (film 1996) fa:شبح (فیلم) fr:Le Fantôme du Bengale it:The Phantom (film) nl:The Phantom (film) pl:Fantom (film) pt:O Fantasma (filme) ru:Фантом (фильм, 1996) sr:Фантом (филм) fi:Mustanaamio (elokuva) sv:Fantomen (film) tr:The Phantom (film)This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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