Beyond the Sea (film)
Encyclopedia
Beyond the Sea is a 2004 biographical film
based on the life of singer/actor Bobby Darin
. Kevin Spacey
, who stars in the lead role and used his own singing voice for the musical numbers, co-wrote, directed, and co-produced the film, which takes its title from the Darin song of the same name
. Beyond the Sea depicts Darin's rise to teen idol
success in both the music and film industry during the 1950s and 60s, as well as his marriage to Sandra Dee
, portrayed by Kate Bosworth
.
As early as 1986, Barry Levinson
intended to direct a film based on the life of Darin, and he began pre-production
on the project in early 1997. When he eventually vacated the director's position, Spacey, along with Darin's son Dodd, acquired the film rights
. Beyond the Sea was released in December 2004 to mixed reviews from critics and bombed at the box office
. However, Dodd Darin, Sandra Dee and former Darin manager Steve Blauner
responded with enthusiastic feedback to Spacey's work on the film. Despite the mixed reviews, some critics praised Spacey's performance, largely due to his decision to use his own singing voice. He also received a Golden Globe nomination.
sequences with scenes containing somewhat fiction
alized accounts of events in Darin's life, and throughout it, the adult singer interacts with his younger self. It chronicles his determination to rise from his working class Italian-American roots as Walden Robert Cassotto, a frail Bronx
boy plagued by multiple bouts of rheumatic fever
, and become a singer more famous than Frank Sinatra
. To achieve that goal, he forms a band and struggles to find gigs at any nightclub
that will hire him.
His agent gets Darin a recording contract with Atlantic Records
, where the singer enjoys teen idol
success with "Splish Splash"
. Not wanting to limit his appeal to rock and roll
audiences, he changes his niche to big band
singing and records major hits, such as "Mack the Knife." To capitalize on his popularity with teenage and young adult audiences, Darin is cast in Come September
opposite Sandra Dee
. He falls in love with the 18-year-old actress and, determined to marry her, he woos her with songs like "Beyond the Sea
" and "Dream Lover
." The two finally elope, angering her mother. Darin finally realizes his own mother's dream when he is signed to appear at the famed Copacabana nightclub
in Manhattan
.
As his success takes him on the road and away from home, Dee begins to drink heavily, and the couple fights frequently. Eventually they separate, then later reconcile. She gives birth to their son Dodd, and Darin is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
for his performance as a shell shock
ed soldier in Captain Newman, M.D.
When Darin becomes involved in the campaign to elect Robert F. Kennedy
for President
and contemplates a political career of his own, his sister Nina, knowing his past will be investigated closely if he opts to enter the political arena, shocks him with the news his beloved mother actually was his grandmother and he is Nina's illegitimate child, the son of a father she can't identify.
Devastated, Darin becomes a recluse
living in a trailer on the Big Sur
coast in California
. He finds himself out of step with changing music trends, and when he tries to adapt by incorporating folk music
and protest song
s into his repertoire, he finds himself rejected by the audience that once embraced him. Undaunted, he stages a show, complete with a gospel
choir, at the Flamingo Hotel
in Las Vegas
, and against all odds it is a huge success. But his triumph is short-lived - suffering with blood poisoning
following surgery to repair his mechanical heart valve
, he's rushed to the hospital, where he dies at the age of 37. Following his death, he meets the younger counterpart of himself once again, and the two duet with "As Long as I'm Singing."
Cathy Moriarty-Gentile and Vanessa Redgrave
were originally cast in Beyond the Sea, but both actresses dropped out for unspecified reasons.
intended to produce and direct a biopic
based on the life of Bobby Darin with funding from his own production company
, Baltimore Pictures. With writer Lewis Colick
, Levinson pitched the idea to Warner Bros.
Pictures, who agreed to co-finance The Bobby Darin Story and cover distribution duties. Producer Arthur Friedman
, a fan of Darin's work, began to laboriously negotiate for crucial music licensing
rights with Darin's ex-wife, Sandra Dee; his son, Dodd; and former manager Steve Blauner. Colick wrote the first draft in 1987 before Warner Bros. and Levinson commissioned rewrites from Paul Attanasio
and Paul Schrader
. Their scripts, which kept The Bobby Darin Story title, concentrated on Sandra Dee's alcoholism and childhood molestation by her stepfather. David Gershenson, Darin's longtime friend, publicist and manager, joined the project as a historical consultant. Tom Cruise
was reportedly under consideration to portray Darin.
Meanwhile, in May 1994, Warner Bros. option
ed Dodd Darin's book, Dream Lovers (ISBN 0-446-51768-2). James Toback
and Lorenzo Carcaterra
were hired to rewrite Attanasio's The Bobby Darin Story, which they re-titled Dreamer, in an attempt to incorporate the information present in Dodd Darin's Dream Lovers. Toback's script heavily focused on Darin's childhood rheumatic fever and lifelong struggle with heart disease. It also followed the previous Attanasio and Schrader scripts. Carcaterra's detailed research included Darin's music records, home videos, early television clips, authorized and unauthorized biographies, newspaper articles and magazine interviews. "I decided to meet with a lot of real-life people associated with Bobby Darin until [Levinson] said it was taking the focus off of Bobby," Carcaterra explained. As a result, some of the writer's favorite scenes, including a Las Vegas confrontation with Elvis Presley
, were omitted from his third and final draft, which came in at a lengthy 164 pages.
Beginning in 1994, Kevin Spacey
first offered his services to portray Bobby Darin, but the filmmakers believed the actor was too old. Around this time, Spacey coincidentally performed the cover version
of Darin's "That Old Black Magic" for the soundtrack of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
. The actor explained that after 1994, "at least three times a year, my manager would call over to Warner Bros. and say, 'Hey, what's happening with that Bobby Darin movie? You guys ever going to make it?'"
With filming to originally begin in late-1997, pre-production
for Dreamer was commencing, and Levinson began to discuss the film with various actors. This included Johnny Depp
as Bobby Darin, Drew Barrymore
as Sandra Dee, Bette Midler
as Darin's birth mother Nina and Bruno Kirby
as Nina's husband/Darin's right-hand man, Charlie Cassotto Mafia. Levinson eventually vacated the director's position in favor of Liberty Heights
(1999); because he was unable to get Dreamer into production, Warner Bros. lost the music licensing
rights, which reverted back to the Darin estate.
announced their teaming with Dodd Darin on a biopic, with collaboration from producer Arthur Friedman
, who had been developing both The Bobby Darin Story and Dreamer with Levinson at Warner Bros. since 1986. Shortly afterwards, Spacey was in discussions with Dodd Darin to star in the lead role. Spacey was able to acquire the film rights
from Warner Bros. in early-2000. With the help of Dodd Darin, the actor also received exclusive music rights for no charge. With his Academy Award-winning performance in American Beauty
(1999), Paramount Pictures
became interested in distributing/financing Beyond the Sea. The deal fell apart when Paramount told Spacey was that he was too old for the role and instead wanted Leonardo DiCaprio
. Beginning in October 2000, Spacey took vocal training lessons from Darin collaborator Roger Kellaway
to give an accurate portrayal of the singer.
Spacey also kept close relations with the Darin family as a means to know he would treat the film "with respect". He sent letters to that effect to Sandra Dee and son Dodd. Steve Blauner (who is portrayed by John Goodman
in the film) also served as a historical consultant. Dodd originally considered Spacey's plan to sing his father's material a sacrilege
, but eventually fell into sync with Spacey's deeply empathetic approach to Darin's life.
Tom Epperson
, who had struck up a friendship with Spacey while writing an early screenplay draft of The Shipping News
, was hired to write a new draft for Beyond the Sea. Epperson's script included Darin's penchant for orgies after his divorce with Sandra Dee. Spacey, finding the Epperson script to be overtly dark and morbid, began to rewrite Beyond the Sea, incorporating info from the 1987 Lewis Colick script. Spacey acknowledged he portrayed Darin in an exaggeratedly sympathetic way, and decided not to centrally depict the darker side of Darin's life. "The other scripts made Bobby [Darin] a rather unlikable figure," he explained. "I was not interested in making a conventional biopic, as you can see from the results. I was interested in making an exuberant celebration of an entertainer in a way that would be uplifting for an audience."
By making the biopic, Dodd Darin and Spacey acknowledged the similar career experiences between Darin and Spacey. "A lot of people doubted my dad's abilities, and Kevin's had doubters and naysayers," Dodd commented. "But both [men] were willing to take risks, and both were very resilient. My dad would always try new things. You could never pin him down. Kevin's career is similar." David Evanier, author of Roman Candle: The Life of Bobby Darin (ISBN 978-1-59486-010-2), said "You can put Kevin's obsessiveness about getting the film made right up there with Bobby's obsessiveness. He's also the ideal person to play Bobby. He has an uncanny physical resemblance to him, and he also has Bobby's intensity and dark side. Also, there's the connection with his mother. Bobby's mother's belief in him sent him soaring. Kevin's mother wanted him to make this film. Kevin sees the film as an act of devotion to his mother."
"I think the movie is about mothers and sons," Spacey said, referring to Darin's relationship with his mother Polly and sister Nina. Spacey's mother, Kathleen Fowler, died of brain cancer just before production started. "I made the movie for all mothers, but especially for my mother. She introduced me to Bobby Darin. When she got very ill in 2002, I stopped everything and took care of her. We constantly played Bobby Darin records, and I'd let her listen to the tracks I was recording. I'm glad she passed knowing this was the movie I was going to make." After his award-winning performances in The Usual Suspects
and American Beauty, Spacey "chose to move away from dark, sarcastic characters, and instead play damaged but good-hearted men" in films like Pay It Forward
, K-PAX
and The Shipping News
. The actor was criticized for his career move; Spacey acknowledged the similarities when Darin integrated into folk music
and protest song
s.
(MGM) agreed to cover distribution duties in North America. However, the following August, with principal photography
to begin in just weeks, MGM dropped out as distributor and main financier over scheduling conflicts. To accumulate financing of the film's $25 million budget, which came from foreign production companies, Spacey performed six songs at the November 2003 American Film Market
. Lions Gate Entertainment
quickly picked up the distribution duties and Spacey found enough investors from England and Germany to continue to move forward on production.
In addition, Spacey denied to be paid for his work as actor, director, co-writer and producer on Beyond the Sea. A portion of the $25 million budget came from his own Trigger Street Productions
. Producer Arthur Friedman, who had shepherded the biopic since 1987, commented that he and Spacey experienced creative differences during pre-production. Friedman remarked that he was not involved with Beyond the Sea once production began in Germany. Filming was originally set to begin in June 2003 before it was pushed to November 7, 2003, lasting until late-January 2004. 80% of Beyond the Sea was shot using sound stage
s at Babelsberg Studios
in Germany and Shepperton Studios
in England. Dover
, South East England
doubled for Darin's setting of reclusiveness in Big Sur
, California
. In an attempt to convincingly portray Darin, particularly during the early stages of the singer's life depicted in the film, Spacey hired prosthetic makeup
designer Peter King from The Lord of the Rings film trilogy
.
devised a 12-city United States concert tour titled An Evening Celebrating the Music of Bobby Darin, which consisted of Spacey performing with a 19-piece band. "It's me singing Bobby and talking about Bobby and talking a little bit about the movie," Spacey explained in June 2004. Spacey dressed in costumes from the movie for the tour, which started in San Francisco and traveled through Los Angeles
, New York City
, Boston
, Chicago
, Miami and Atlantic City
before ending in the Wayne Newton
Theatre at the Stardust Hotel
in Las Vegas. Spacey's performance at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
on December 11, 2004 received a standing ovation
. Dodd Darin commented, "It was said about my dad that he had some big brass ones. To do a film about my dad is one thing, but it's another thing to go out and attempt to work a nightclub. Kevin's got a lot of courage. I think he sounds good." The film was shown and promoted at the Toronto International Film Festival
on September 11, 2004.
conducted arbitration through the scripts that had been written since Barry Levinson developed the film at Warner Bros. in 1987. Lewis Colick, James Toback and Tom Epperson disassociated themselves for credit by the WGA. The Guild justified credit to Lewis Colick, who wrote the first draft of The Bobby Darin Story in 1987, and Kevin Spacey. However, actor-writer Jeffrey Meek
believed he should have deserved credit; he was paid $85,000 of a promised $125,000 to settle his claim to have performed writing services.
Spacey said Meek was "not a hired writer" on Beyond the Sea. "He turned in a draft, but it was a draft based on earlier material based on my own screenplays," Spacey commented. Meek, however, said he was hired by producer Harvey Friedman, a friend who stood up at his wedding and helped connect him with Spacey, with whom he claims to have produced 12 drafts, including one that was reported by Variety
to have received a greenlight
from MGM
in early 2003. "He bought my material and then acted like I didn't exist," Meek explained. "I'm not saying I'm Rembrandt, but it's like someone buying a painting and then scratching the name off of it and putting their own there."
, 42% of the critics enjoyed the film with an average score of 5.2/10. By comparison, Metacritic
calculated a weighted average score of 46/100, based on 35 reviews.
Sandra Dee, Dodd Darin, Jimmy Scalia
and Steve Blauner responded enthusiastically to Spacey's work on the film. Mick LaSalle
of the San Francisco Chronicle
felt Spacey looked too old to portray Darin convincingly and called the film "one of the most embarrassing spectacles of 2004" and "jaw-droppingly awful, a misbegotten and ill-conceived vanity project." Desson Thomson
from The Washington Post
praised the actor's work, but also felt Spacey did not convincingly portray Darin in his early music career. Internet reviewer James Berardinelli
found the storyline to be overtly cliché
d, but added, "Despite the choppy narrative and inappropriate casting of Spacey, Beyond the Sea managed to keep me entertained."
Roger Ebert
gave a largely positive review, stating that, "Kevin Spacey was born to play Bobby Darin. In his own best work, Spacey has achieved genius; he is better as an actor than Darin ever was as a singer." Stephen Holden
of The New York Times
felt that "with Beyond the Sea, Spacey crawls back from his doomed quest to be a Tom Hanks
-like everyman to his niche on the underbelly of Hollywood's pantheon. The movie's a mess, and at 45, Spacey is far too old to play Darin. Yet the star captures his desperation, his braggadocio, and yes, his magnetism." Peter Travers
, writing in Rolling Stone magazine, believed Spacey could not prevent "the movie from groaning under the weight of biopic clichés. But the actor forges a bond with his subject that rights all wrongs. Doing his own singing (an uncanny imitation), Spacey is a marvel."
in the United States on December 17, 2004 and went into wide release
on December 29. It grossed $6,318,709 in the US and $2,128,906 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $8,447,615. It was declared a box office bomb
because it did not make back its $25 million budget. On June 7, 2005, the film was released on DVD in widescreen anamorphic
format for Region 1
markets. It features two Dolby Digital
English audio tracks (one in 2.0 Stereo and the other in 5.1 Surround Sound), director's commentary
by Spacey, and a making-of
featurette.
Spacey was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
but lost to Jamie Foxx
for Ray
. He and Phil Ramone
were also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, but lost to the producers of Ray
.
Biographical film
A biographical film, or biopic , is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their...
based on the life of singer/actor Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin , born Walden Robert Cassotto, was an American singer, actor and musician.Darin performed in a range of music genres, including pop, rock, jazz, folk and country...
. Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...
, who stars in the lead role and used his own singing voice for the musical numbers, co-wrote, directed, and co-produced the film, which takes its title from the Darin song of the same name
Beyond the Sea (song)
"Beyond the Sea" is a 1946 contemporary pop song with music taken from the song "La Mer" by Charles Trenet and lyrics by Jack Lawrence.Trenet had composed "La Mer" with French lyrics totally different and unrelated to the English language version that Lawrence composed...
. Beyond the Sea depicts Darin's rise to teen idol
Teen idol
A teen idol is a celebrity who is widely idolized by teenagers; he or she is often young but not necessarily teenaged. Often teen idols are actors or pop singers, but some sports figures have an appeal to teenagers. Some teen idols began their careers as child actors...
success in both the music and film industry during the 1950s and 60s, as well as his marriage to Sandra Dee
Sandra Dee
Sandra Dee was an American actress. Dee began her career as a model and progressed to film. Best known for her portrayal of ingenues, Dee won a Golden Globe Award in 1959 as one of the year's most promising newcomers, and over several years her films were popular...
, portrayed by Kate Bosworth
Kate Bosworth
Catherine Ann "Kate" Bosworth is an American actress. Bosworth starred in the television series Young Americans, in which she played Bella Banks. She became known with a leading role in 2002's Blue Crush. The following year, Bosworth played the teenage girlfriend of porn star John Holmes in...
.
As early as 1986, Barry Levinson
Barry Levinson
Barry Levinson is an American screenwriter, film director, actor, and producer of film and television. His films include Good Morning, Vietnam, Sleepers and Rain Man.-Early life:...
intended to direct a film based on the life of Darin, and he began pre-production
Pre-production
Pre-production or In Production is the process of preparing all the elements involved in a film, play, or other performance.- In film :...
on the project in early 1997. When he eventually vacated the director's position, Spacey, along with Darin's son Dodd, acquired the film rights
Film rights
Film rights are the rights under copyright law to make a derivative work—in this case, a film—derived from an item of intellectual property. Under U.S...
. Beyond the Sea was released in December 2004 to mixed reviews from critics and bombed at the box office
Box office bomb
The phrase box office bomb refers to a film for which the production and marketing costs greatly exceeded the revenue regained by the movie studio. This should not be confused with Hollywood accounting when official figures show large losses, yet the movie is a financial success.A film's financial...
. However, Dodd Darin, Sandra Dee and former Darin manager Steve Blauner
Stephen Blauner
Jules Stephen "Boom Boom" Blauner was Bobby Darin's manager and very close friend, producer, and member of BBS Productions.-Early life:...
responded with enthusiastic feedback to Spacey's work on the film. Despite the mixed reviews, some critics praised Spacey's performance, largely due to his decision to use his own singing voice. He also received a Golden Globe nomination.
Plot
Rather than providing a straightforward biography, the film weaves fantasyFantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
sequences with scenes containing somewhat fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
alized accounts of events in Darin's life, and throughout it, the adult singer interacts with his younger self. It chronicles his determination to rise from his working class Italian-American roots as Walden Robert Cassotto, a frail Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
boy plagued by multiple bouts of rheumatic fever
Rheumatic fever
Rheumatic fever is an inflammatory disease that occurs following a Streptococcus pyogenes infection, such as strep throat or scarlet fever. Believed to be caused by antibody cross-reactivity that can involve the heart, joints, skin, and brain, the illness typically develops two to three weeks after...
, and become a singer more famous than Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
. To achieve that goal, he forms a band and struggles to find gigs at any nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
that will hire him.
His agent gets Darin a recording contract with Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
, where the singer enjoys teen idol
Teen idol
A teen idol is a celebrity who is widely idolized by teenagers; he or she is often young but not necessarily teenaged. Often teen idols are actors or pop singers, but some sports figures have an appeal to teenagers. Some teen idols began their careers as child actors...
success with "Splish Splash"
Splish Splash (song)
"Splish Splash" is a 1958 song performed and co-written by Bobby Darin. It was written with DJ Murray the K , who bet that Darin couldn't write a song that began with the words, "Splish Splash, I was takin' a bath", as suggested by Murray's mother, Jean Kaufman. The song was credited to Darin and...
. Not wanting to limit his appeal to rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
audiences, he changes his niche to big band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
singing and records major hits, such as "Mack the Knife." To capitalize on his popularity with teenage and young adult audiences, Darin is cast in Come September
Come September
For the Natalie Imbruglia song, see Come September .Come September is a 1961 romantic comedy film directed by Robert Mulligan, and starring Rock Hudson, Gina Lollobrigida, Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin.-Plot:...
opposite Sandra Dee
Sandra Dee
Sandra Dee was an American actress. Dee began her career as a model and progressed to film. Best known for her portrayal of ingenues, Dee won a Golden Globe Award in 1959 as one of the year's most promising newcomers, and over several years her films were popular...
. He falls in love with the 18-year-old actress and, determined to marry her, he woos her with songs like "Beyond the Sea
Beyond the Sea (song)
"Beyond the Sea" is a 1946 contemporary pop song with music taken from the song "La Mer" by Charles Trenet and lyrics by Jack Lawrence.Trenet had composed "La Mer" with French lyrics totally different and unrelated to the English language version that Lawrence composed...
" and "Dream Lover
Dream Lover
"Dream Lover" is a song written and recorded by Bobby Darin on March 5, 1959. It was produced by Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler and engineered by Tom Dowd. It is considered a soulful rock song. The song became a multi-million seller, reaching #2 in US charts and was #1 in UK for three weeks during...
." The two finally elope, angering her mother. Darin finally realizes his own mother's dream when he is signed to appear at the famed Copacabana nightclub
Copacabana (nightclub)
The Copacabana is a famous New York City nightclub. Many entertainers, among them Danny Thomas, Pat Cooper and the comedy team of Martin and Lewis, made their debuts at the Copacabana. The 1978 Barry Manilow song "Copacabana" is named after, and is about the nightclub. Part of the 2003 Yerba...
in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
.
As his success takes him on the road and away from home, Dee begins to drink heavily, and the couple fights frequently. Eventually they separate, then later reconcile. She gives birth to their son Dodd, and Darin is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
for his performance as a shell shock
Combat stress reaction
Combat stress reaction , in the past commonly known as shell shock or battle fatigue, is a range of behaviours resulting from the stress of battle which decrease the combatant's fighting efficiency. The most common symptoms are fatigue, slower reaction times, indecision, disconnection from one's...
ed soldier in Captain Newman, M.D.
Captain Newman, M.D.
Captain Newman, M.D. is a 1963 film starring Gregory Peck, Tony Curtis, Angie Dickinson, Robert Duvall, Eddie Albert and Bobby Darin. It was directed by David Miller and filmed on location at Fort Huachuca, Arizona....
When Darin becomes involved in the campaign to elect Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
for President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
and contemplates a political career of his own, his sister Nina, knowing his past will be investigated closely if he opts to enter the political arena, shocks him with the news his beloved mother actually was his grandmother and he is Nina's illegitimate child, the son of a father she can't identify.
Devastated, Darin becomes a recluse
Recluse
A recluse is a person who lives in voluntary seclusion from the public and society, often close to nature. The word is from the Latin recludere, which means "shut up" or "sequester." There are many potential reasons for becoming a recluse: a personal philosophy that rejects consumer society; a...
living in a trailer on the Big Sur
Big Sur
Big Sur is a sparsely populated region of the Central Coast of California where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. The name "Big Sur" is derived from the original Spanish-language "el sur grande", meaning "the big south", or from "el país grande del sur", "the big...
coast in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. He finds himself out of step with changing music trends, and when he tries to adapt by incorporating folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
and protest song
Protest song
A protest song is a song which is associated with a movement for social change and hence part of the broader category of topical songs . It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre...
s into his repertoire, he finds himself rejected by the audience that once embraced him. Undaunted, he stages a show, complete with a gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
choir, at the Flamingo Hotel
Flamingo Las Vegas
The Flamingo Las Vegas is a hotel casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada and is owned and operated by Caesars Entertainment Corp.. The property offers a casino along with 3,626 hotel rooms...
in Las Vegas
Las Vegas Strip
The Las Vegas Strip is an approximately stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard in Clark County, Nevada; adjacent to, but outside the city limits of Las Vegas proper. The Strip lies within the unincorporated townships of Paradise and Winchester...
, and against all odds it is a huge success. But his triumph is short-lived - suffering with blood poisoning
Sepsis
Sepsis is a potentially deadly medical condition that is characterized by a whole-body inflammatory state and the presence of a known or suspected infection. The body may develop this inflammatory response by the immune system to microbes in the blood, urine, lungs, skin, or other tissues...
following surgery to repair his mechanical heart valve
Heart valve
A heart valve normally allows blood flow in only one direction through the heart. The four valves commonly represented in a mammalian heart determine the pathway of blood flow through the heart...
, he's rushed to the hospital, where he dies at the age of 37. Following his death, he meets the younger counterpart of himself once again, and the two duet with "As Long as I'm Singing."
Cast
- Kevin SpaceyKevin SpaceyKevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...
as Bobby DarinBobby DarinBobby Darin , born Walden Robert Cassotto, was an American singer, actor and musician.Darin performed in a range of music genres, including pop, rock, jazz, folk and country...
, who rises from his lower class Italian American roots to become one of the most popular rock and rollRock and rollRock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
and big bandBig bandA big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
performers of all time. - Kate BosworthKate BosworthCatherine Ann "Kate" Bosworth is an American actress. Bosworth starred in the television series Young Americans, in which she played Bella Banks. She became known with a leading role in 2002's Blue Crush. The following year, Bosworth played the teenage girlfriend of porn star John Holmes in...
as Sandra DeeSandra DeeSandra Dee was an American actress. Dee began her career as a model and progressed to film. Best known for her portrayal of ingenues, Dee won a Golden Globe Award in 1959 as one of the year's most promising newcomers, and over several years her films were popular...
, the popular actress who marries Bobby. Although they divorced in 1967, Sandra said she always loved him and never remarried. - Bob HoskinsBob HoskinsRobert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. is an English actor known for playing Cockney rough diamonds, psychopaths and gangsters, in films such as The Long Good Friday , and Mona Lisa , and lighter roles in family films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Hook .- Early life :Hoskins was born in Bury St...
as Charlie Cassotto Maffia, who serves as a father figureFather Figure"Father Figure" is the U.S. number-one song written and performed by George Michael and released on Columbia Records in 1988 as the third single from the album Faith.-History:...
and considers Bobby to be his son. - John GoodmanJohn GoodmanJohn Stephen Goodman is an American film, television, and stage actor. He is best known for his role as Dan Conner on the television series Roseanne for which he won a Best Actor Golden Globe Award in 1993, and for appearances in the films of the Coen brothers, with prominent roles in Raising...
as Steve "Boom Boom" Blauner, Bobby's dedicated talent managerTalent managerA talent manager, also known as an artist manager or band manager, is an individual or company who guides the professional career of artists in the entertainment industry...
. Blauner later becomes a successful film producerFilm producerA film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
with movies such as Easy RiderEasy RiderEasy Rider is a 1969 American road movie written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda and directed by Hopper. It tells the story of two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and South with the aim of achieving freedom...
(1969) and The Last Picture ShowThe Last Picture ShowThe Last Picture Show is a 1971 American drama film directed by Peter Bogdanovich, adapted from a semi-autobiographical 1966 novel of the same name by Larry McMurtry....
(1971). - Brenda BlethynBrenda BlethynBrenda Anne Blethyn, OBE is an English actress who has worked in theatre, television and film. Blethyn has received two Academy Award nominations, two SAG Award nominations, two Emmy Award nominations and three Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
as Polly Cassotto, Bobby's biological grandmother, who teaches him the art of music as a child. - Caroline AaronCaroline AaronCaroline Aaron is an American actress and producer. She is best known for her role as acid-tongued talk show host Mary Pat Lee on Wings.-Personal life:...
as Nina Cassotto Maffia, Bobby's biological mother, whom he believed to be his sister. Nina tells him the truth when he is 33 years old. - Greta ScacchiGreta ScacchiGreta Scacchi is an Italian-Australian actor.-Early life:Scacchi was born Greta Gracco in Milan, Italy, on 18 February 1960, the daughter of Luca Scacchi Gracco, an Italian art dealer and painter, and Pamela Carsaniga, an English dancer and antiques dealer...
as Mary Douvan, Sandra's protective mother. - Peter CincottiPeter CincottiPeter Cincotti is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He attended the Horace Mann School and Columbia University.-Biography:...
as Dick Behrke, Bobby's arranger and pianist. - Matt RippyMatt RippyMatt Rippy, is an American actor, born in Houston, Texas. He is most known for his role as the 'real' Captain Jack Harkness in Torchwood in 2006...
as David Gershenson, Bobby's publicist. - William Ullrich as young Bobby.
Cathy Moriarty-Gentile and Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
were originally cast in Beyond the Sea, but both actresses dropped out for unspecified reasons.
Barry Levinson
Beginning in 1986, Barry LevinsonBarry Levinson
Barry Levinson is an American screenwriter, film director, actor, and producer of film and television. His films include Good Morning, Vietnam, Sleepers and Rain Man.-Early life:...
intended to produce and direct a biopic
Biographical film
A biographical film, or biopic , is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their...
based on the life of Bobby Darin with funding from his own production company
Production company
A production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, and video.- Tasks and functions :...
, Baltimore Pictures. With writer Lewis Colick
Lewis Colick
Lewis Colick in an American screenwriter born in Brooklyn, New York. He attended Brooklyn College in New York and got his MFA in Theatre Arts from the UCLA Film School.-Filmography:*Unlawful Entry *Judgment Night *Bulletproof...
, Levinson pitched the idea to Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
Pictures, who agreed to co-finance The Bobby Darin Story and cover distribution duties. Producer Arthur Friedman
Arthur Friedman
Arthur Friedman is an American film producer and former studio executive at Warner Bros. Pictures. His credits include Price of Glory and Beyond the Sea .-External links:* at the Internet Movie Database...
, a fan of Darin's work, began to laboriously negotiate for crucial music licensing
Music licensing
Music licensing is the licensed use of copyrighted music. Music licensing is intended to ensure that the creators of musical works get paid for their work. A purchaser of recorded music owns the media on which the music is stored, not the music itself...
rights with Darin's ex-wife, Sandra Dee; his son, Dodd; and former manager Steve Blauner. Colick wrote the first draft in 1987 before Warner Bros. and Levinson commissioned rewrites from Paul Attanasio
Paul Attanasio
Paul Albert Attanasio is an American screenwriter and producer of film and television, who is currently an executive producer on the television series House.-Life and career:...
and Paul Schrader
Paul Schrader
Paul Joseph Schrader is an American screenwriter, film director, and former film critic. Apart from his credentials as a director, Schrader is most notably known for his screenplays for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Raging Bull....
. Their scripts, which kept The Bobby Darin Story title, concentrated on Sandra Dee's alcoholism and childhood molestation by her stepfather. David Gershenson, Darin's longtime friend, publicist and manager, joined the project as a historical consultant. Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
was reportedly under consideration to portray Darin.
Meanwhile, in May 1994, Warner Bros. option
Option (finance)
In finance, an option is a derivative financial instrument that specifies a contract between two parties for a future transaction on an asset at a reference price. The buyer of the option gains the right, but not the obligation, to engage in that transaction, while the seller incurs the...
ed Dodd Darin's book, Dream Lovers (ISBN 0-446-51768-2). James Toback
James Toback
James Lee Toback is an American screenwriter and film director.-Early life:Toback was born in New York City. His mother, Selma Judith , was a President of The League of Women Voters and a moderator of political debates on NBC. His father, Irwin Lionel Toback, was a stockbroker and former...
and Lorenzo Carcaterra
Lorenzo Carcaterra
Lorenzo Carcaterra is an American writer. Hell's Kitchen is the setting for his most famous book, Sleepers, which was adapted into the Sleepers...
were hired to rewrite Attanasio's The Bobby Darin Story, which they re-titled Dreamer, in an attempt to incorporate the information present in Dodd Darin's Dream Lovers. Toback's script heavily focused on Darin's childhood rheumatic fever and lifelong struggle with heart disease. It also followed the previous Attanasio and Schrader scripts. Carcaterra's detailed research included Darin's music records, home videos, early television clips, authorized and unauthorized biographies, newspaper articles and magazine interviews. "I decided to meet with a lot of real-life people associated with Bobby Darin until [Levinson] said it was taking the focus off of Bobby," Carcaterra explained. As a result, some of the writer's favorite scenes, including a Las Vegas confrontation with Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, were omitted from his third and final draft, which came in at a lengthy 164 pages.
Beginning in 1994, Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...
first offered his services to portray Bobby Darin, but the filmmakers believed the actor was too old. Around this time, Spacey coincidentally performed the cover version
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
of Darin's "That Old Black Magic" for the soundtrack of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a non-fiction work by John Berendt. Published in 1994, the book was Berendt's first, and became a The New York Times bestseller for 216 weeks following its debut....
. The actor explained that after 1994, "at least three times a year, my manager would call over to Warner Bros. and say, 'Hey, what's happening with that Bobby Darin movie? You guys ever going to make it?'"
With filming to originally begin in late-1997, pre-production
Pre-production
Pre-production or In Production is the process of preparing all the elements involved in a film, play, or other performance.- In film :...
for Dreamer was commencing, and Levinson began to discuss the film with various actors. This included Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor, producer and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol...
as Bobby Darin, Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore
Drew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered...
as Sandra Dee, Bette Midler
Bette Midler
Bette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...
as Darin's birth mother Nina and Bruno Kirby
Bruno Kirby
Bruno Kirby was an American film and television actor. He was perhaps best known for his roles in the Hollywood films City Slickers, When Harry Met Sally..., Good Morning, Vietnam, The Godfather Part II and Donnie Brasco.-Early life:Kirby was born Bruno Giovanni Quidaciolu, Jr. in New York City,...
as Nina's husband/Darin's right-hand man, Charlie Cassotto Mafia. Levinson eventually vacated the director's position in favor of Liberty Heights
Liberty Heights
Liberty Heights is a 1999 comedy-drama film by writer-director Barry Levinson. It is a semi-autobiographical account of his childhood growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s. It marked the last appearance of Ralph Tabakin, who appeared in cameo roles in every Levinson movie since his first, Diner , a...
(1999); because he was unable to get Dreamer into production, Warner Bros. lost the music licensing
Music licensing
Music licensing is the licensed use of copyrighted music. Music licensing is intended to ensure that the creators of musical works get paid for their work. A purchaser of recorded music owns the media on which the music is stored, not the music itself...
rights, which reverted back to the Darin estate.
Kevin Spacey
In March 1999, Dick Clark ProductionsDick Clark Productions
Dick Clark Productions is an entertainment production company founded by entertainer Dick Clark...
announced their teaming with Dodd Darin on a biopic, with collaboration from producer Arthur Friedman
Arthur Friedman
Arthur Friedman is an American film producer and former studio executive at Warner Bros. Pictures. His credits include Price of Glory and Beyond the Sea .-External links:* at the Internet Movie Database...
, who had been developing both The Bobby Darin Story and Dreamer with Levinson at Warner Bros. since 1986. Shortly afterwards, Spacey was in discussions with Dodd Darin to star in the lead role. Spacey was able to acquire the film rights
Film rights
Film rights are the rights under copyright law to make a derivative work—in this case, a film—derived from an item of intellectual property. Under U.S...
from Warner Bros. in early-2000. With the help of Dodd Darin, the actor also received exclusive music rights for no charge. With his Academy Award-winning performance in American Beauty
American Beauty (film)
American Beauty is a 1999 American drama film directed by Sam Mendes and written by Alan Ball. Kevin Spacey stars as Lester Burnham, a middle-aged magazine writer who has a midlife crisis when he becomes infatuated with his teenage daughter's best friend, Angela...
(1999), Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
became interested in distributing/financing Beyond the Sea. The deal fell apart when Paramount told Spacey was that he was too old for the role and instead wanted Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
. Beginning in October 2000, Spacey took vocal training lessons from Darin collaborator Roger Kellaway
Roger Kellaway
Roger Kellaway is an American composer, arranger, and pianist.Born in Waban, Massachusetts, he is an alumnus of the New England Conservatory...
to give an accurate portrayal of the singer.
| "Bobby was a man I found very compelling, driven, ambitious and complicated. He challenged himself and never sat back on his laurels. It's sad that he didn't live longer, but I don't think his life was tragic. I view his life as inspiring." |
| — Kevin Spacey |
Spacey also kept close relations with the Darin family as a means to know he would treat the film "with respect". He sent letters to that effect to Sandra Dee and son Dodd. Steve Blauner (who is portrayed by John Goodman
John Goodman
John Stephen Goodman is an American film, television, and stage actor. He is best known for his role as Dan Conner on the television series Roseanne for which he won a Best Actor Golden Globe Award in 1993, and for appearances in the films of the Coen brothers, with prominent roles in Raising...
in the film) also served as a historical consultant. Dodd originally considered Spacey's plan to sing his father's material a sacrilege
Sacrilege
Sacrilege is the violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object. In a less proper sense, any transgression against the virtue of religion would be a sacrilege. It can come in the form of irreverence to sacred persons, places, and things...
, but eventually fell into sync with Spacey's deeply empathetic approach to Darin's life.
Tom Epperson
Tom Epperson
Tom Epperson is an American screenwriter et writer known for his collaborations with Billy Bob Thornton.-Selected filmography:*One False Move *A Family Thing *Don't Look Back *A Gun, a Car, a Blonde...
, who had struck up a friendship with Spacey while writing an early screenplay draft of The Shipping News
The Shipping News (film)
The Shipping News is a 2001 drama film directed by Lasse Hallström, based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by E. Annie Proulx.It stars Kevin Spacey as the protagonist Quoyle, Judi Dench as Agnis Hamm and Julianne Moore as Wavey Prowse...
, was hired to write a new draft for Beyond the Sea. Epperson's script included Darin's penchant for orgies after his divorce with Sandra Dee. Spacey, finding the Epperson script to be overtly dark and morbid, began to rewrite Beyond the Sea, incorporating info from the 1987 Lewis Colick script. Spacey acknowledged he portrayed Darin in an exaggeratedly sympathetic way, and decided not to centrally depict the darker side of Darin's life. "The other scripts made Bobby [Darin] a rather unlikable figure," he explained. "I was not interested in making a conventional biopic, as you can see from the results. I was interested in making an exuberant celebration of an entertainer in a way that would be uplifting for an audience."
By making the biopic, Dodd Darin and Spacey acknowledged the similar career experiences between Darin and Spacey. "A lot of people doubted my dad's abilities, and Kevin's had doubters and naysayers," Dodd commented. "But both [men] were willing to take risks, and both were very resilient. My dad would always try new things. You could never pin him down. Kevin's career is similar." David Evanier, author of Roman Candle: The Life of Bobby Darin (ISBN 978-1-59486-010-2), said "You can put Kevin's obsessiveness about getting the film made right up there with Bobby's obsessiveness. He's also the ideal person to play Bobby. He has an uncanny physical resemblance to him, and he also has Bobby's intensity and dark side. Also, there's the connection with his mother. Bobby's mother's belief in him sent him soaring. Kevin's mother wanted him to make this film. Kevin sees the film as an act of devotion to his mother."
"I think the movie is about mothers and sons," Spacey said, referring to Darin's relationship with his mother Polly and sister Nina. Spacey's mother, Kathleen Fowler, died of brain cancer just before production started. "I made the movie for all mothers, but especially for my mother. She introduced me to Bobby Darin. When she got very ill in 2002, I stopped everything and took care of her. We constantly played Bobby Darin records, and I'd let her listen to the tracks I was recording. I'm glad she passed knowing this was the movie I was going to make." After his award-winning performances in The Usual Suspects
The Usual Suspects
The Usual Suspects is a 1995 American neo-noir film written by Christopher McQuarrie and directed by Bryan Singer. It stars Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollak, Kevin Spacey and Pete Postlethwaite....
and American Beauty, Spacey "chose to move away from dark, sarcastic characters, and instead play damaged but good-hearted men" in films like Pay It Forward
Pay It Forward
Pay It Forward is a 2000 American drama film based on the novel of the same name by Catherine Ryan Hyde. It was directed by Mimi Leder and written by Leslie Dixon...
, K-PAX
K-PAX (film)
K-PAX is a 2001 American science fiction and mystery film directed by Iain Softley and starring Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges, Mary McCormack and Alfre Woodard. The screenplay, written by Gene Brewer and Charles Leavitt, is based on a novel of the same name by Brewer about a psychiatric patient who...
and The Shipping News
The Shipping News (film)
The Shipping News is a 2001 drama film directed by Lasse Hallström, based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by E. Annie Proulx.It stars Kevin Spacey as the protagonist Quoyle, Judi Dench as Agnis Hamm and Julianne Moore as Wavey Prowse...
. The actor was criticized for his career move; Spacey acknowledged the similarities when Darin integrated into folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
and protest song
Protest song
A protest song is a song which is associated with a movement for social change and hence part of the broader category of topical songs . It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre...
s.
Production
In February 2003, it was announced that production for Beyond the Sea was becoming fast tracked with Spacey as lead actor, co-writer, producer and director, and Metro-Goldwyn-MayerMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
(MGM) agreed to cover distribution duties in North America. However, the following August, with principal photography
Principal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
to begin in just weeks, MGM dropped out as distributor and main financier over scheduling conflicts. To accumulate financing of the film's $25 million budget, which came from foreign production companies, Spacey performed six songs at the November 2003 American Film Market
American Film Market
The American Film Market is a film industry event held each year at the beginning of November in Santa Monica, California. About 8,000 people attend the eight day event to network and to sell and acquire films...
. Lions Gate Entertainment
Lions Gate Entertainment
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation is a North American entertainment company. The company was formed in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1997, and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California...
quickly picked up the distribution duties and Spacey found enough investors from England and Germany to continue to move forward on production.
In addition, Spacey denied to be paid for his work as actor, director, co-writer and producer on Beyond the Sea. A portion of the $25 million budget came from his own Trigger Street Productions
Trigger Street Productions
Trigger Street Productions is an entertainment production company formed by Kevin Spacey and his producing partner Dana Brunetti in 1997. The company's credits include The Social Network, 21, Shrink, Fanboys, Father Of Invention, the Emmy-nonimated Bernard and Doris, Emmy-nominated Recount, Mini's...
. Producer Arthur Friedman, who had shepherded the biopic since 1987, commented that he and Spacey experienced creative differences during pre-production. Friedman remarked that he was not involved with Beyond the Sea once production began in Germany. Filming was originally set to begin in June 2003 before it was pushed to November 7, 2003, lasting until late-January 2004. 80% of Beyond the Sea was shot using sound stage
Sound stage
In common usage, a sound stage is a soundproof, hangar-like structure, building, or room, used for the production of theatrical filmmaking and television production, usually located on a secure movie studio property.-Overview:...
s at Babelsberg Studios
Babelsberg Studios
The Studio Babelsberg, located in Potsdam-Babelsberg, Germany, is the oldest large-scale film studio in the world. Founded in 1912, it covers an area of about . Hundreds of films, including Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel were filmed there...
in Germany and Shepperton Studios
Shepperton Studios
Shepperton Studios is a film studio in Shepperton, Surrey, England with a history dating back to 1931 since when many notable films have been made there...
in England. Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
, South East England
South East England
South East England is one of the nine official regions of England, designated in 1994 and adopted for statistical purposes in 1999. It consists of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex...
doubled for Darin's setting of reclusiveness in Big Sur
Big Sur
Big Sur is a sparsely populated region of the Central Coast of California where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. The name "Big Sur" is derived from the original Spanish-language "el sur grande", meaning "the big south", or from "el país grande del sur", "the big...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. In an attempt to convincingly portray Darin, particularly during the early stages of the singer's life depicted in the film, Spacey hired prosthetic makeup
Prosthetic makeup
Prosthetic makeup is the process of using prosthetic sculpting, molding and casting techniques to create advanced cosmetic effects...
designer Peter King from The Lord of the Rings film trilogy
The Lord of the Rings film trilogy
The Lord of the Rings is an epic film trilogy consisting of three fantasy adventure films based on the three-volume book of the same name by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. The films are The Fellowship of the Ring , The Two Towers and The Return of the King .The films were directed by Peter...
.
Marketing
To promote Beyond the Sea, Spacey and Phil RamonePhil Ramone
Phil Ramone is a South-African violinist, composer, recording engineer, and record producer.-Biography:As a young child in South Africa, Ramone was a musical prodigy, beginning to play the violin at age three and performing for Queen Elizabeth II at age ten...
devised a 12-city United States concert tour titled An Evening Celebrating the Music of Bobby Darin, which consisted of Spacey performing with a 19-piece band. "It's me singing Bobby and talking about Bobby and talking a little bit about the movie," Spacey explained in June 2004. Spacey dressed in costumes from the movie for the tour, which started in San Francisco and traveled through Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Miami and Atlantic City
Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City is a city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States, and a nationally renowned resort city for gambling, shopping and fine dining. The city also served as the inspiration for the American version of the board game Monopoly. Atlantic City is located on Absecon Island on the coast...
before ending in the Wayne Newton
Wayne Newton
Wayne Newton is an American singer and entertainer based in Las Vegas, Nevada. He performed over 30,000 solo shows in Las Vegas over a period of over 40 years, earning him the nicknames The Midnight Idol, Mr. Las Vegas and Mr. Entertainment...
Theatre at the Stardust Hotel
Stardust Resort & Casino
The Stardust Resort & Casino was a casino resort located on along the Las Vegas Strip in Winchester, Nevada.The Stardust opened in 1958, although most of the modern casino complex was built in 1991. At its March 13, 2007 demolition it was the youngest undamaged high-rise building to ever be...
in Las Vegas. Spacey's performance at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
The Waldorf-Astoria is a luxury hotel in New York. It has been housed in two historic landmark buildings in New York City. The first, designed by architect Henry J. Hardenbergh, was on the Fifth Avenue site of the Empire State Building. The present building at 301 Park Avenue in Manhattan is a...
on December 11, 2004 received a standing ovation
Standing ovation
A standing ovation is a form of applause where members of a seated audience stand up while applauding after extraordinary performances of particularly high acclaim...
. Dodd Darin commented, "It was said about my dad that he had some big brass ones. To do a film about my dad is one thing, but it's another thing to go out and attempt to work a nightclub. Kevin's got a lot of courage. I think he sounds good." The film was shown and promoted at the Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
on September 11, 2004.
WGA arbitration
Beginning in October 2004, the Writers Guild of America, westWriters Guild of America, west
Writers Guild of America, West is a labor union representing film, television, radio, and new media writers. The Guild was formed in 1954 from five organizations representing writers, which include the Screen Writers Guild...
conducted arbitration through the scripts that had been written since Barry Levinson developed the film at Warner Bros. in 1987. Lewis Colick, James Toback and Tom Epperson disassociated themselves for credit by the WGA. The Guild justified credit to Lewis Colick, who wrote the first draft of The Bobby Darin Story in 1987, and Kevin Spacey. However, actor-writer Jeffrey Meek
Jeffrey Meek
Jeffrey William Meek is an American actor. Meek and his family moved often; as a child, Meek lived in Zweibrücken, Germany, Michigan, and San Francisco....
believed he should have deserved credit; he was paid $85,000 of a promised $125,000 to settle his claim to have performed writing services.
Spacey said Meek was "not a hired writer" on Beyond the Sea. "He turned in a draft, but it was a draft based on earlier material based on my own screenplays," Spacey commented. Meek, however, said he was hired by producer Harvey Friedman, a friend who stood up at his wedding and helped connect him with Spacey, with whom he claims to have produced 12 drafts, including one that was reported by Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
to have received a greenlight
Greenlight
To green-light a project is to give permission or a go ahead to move forward with a project. In the context of the movie and TV businesses, to green-light something is to formally approve its production finance, thereby allowing the project to move forward from the development phase to...
from MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
in early 2003. "He bought my material and then acted like I didn't exist," Meek explained. "I'm not saying I'm Rembrandt, but it's like someone buying a painting and then scratching the name off of it and putting their own there."
Critical reception
Beyond the Sea received generally negative to mixed reception from critics. Based on 147 reviews collected by Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, 42% of the critics enjoyed the film with an average score of 5.2/10. By comparison, Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
calculated a weighted average score of 46/100, based on 35 reviews.
| "I'm very happy with the way the film turned out. Kevin loves my dad, and he wanted to do a tribute. My mother [who never remarried after her split from Darin] was speechless for a while after she saw it. It was emotional for her. There was a lot of truth and grit. But she couldn't be happier." |
| — Dodd Darin |
Sandra Dee, Dodd Darin, Jimmy Scalia
Jimmy Scalia
Jimmy Scalia , is a record producer, the official archivist for the singer Bobby Darin's estate, a disc jockey, writer, and documentarian of American popular and rock music. He currently serves as an adviser and consultant to Darin's former manager Stephen Blauner and The Bobby Darin Estate, as...
and Steve Blauner responded enthusiastically to Spacey's work on the film. Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle is an American Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] [[film reviewer] and the author of two books on pre-[[Motion Picture Production Code|Hays Code]] Hollywood...
of the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
felt Spacey looked too old to portray Darin convincingly and called the film "one of the most embarrassing spectacles of 2004" and "jaw-droppingly awful, a misbegotten and ill-conceived vanity project." Desson Thomson
Desson Thomson
Desson Patrick Thomson is a speechwriter in the Obama Administration and a former movie critic for The Washington Post.-Biography:Thomson attended boarding schools in England from the age of 7 until 17. He went to the Abbey School in East Grinstead, Sussex, and the City of London Freemen's School...
from The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
praised the actor's work, but also felt Spacey did not convincingly portray Darin in his early music career. Internet reviewer James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
found the storyline to be overtly cliché
Cliché
A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...
d, but added, "Despite the choppy narrative and inappropriate casting of Spacey, Beyond the Sea managed to keep me entertained."
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave a largely positive review, stating that, "Kevin Spacey was born to play Bobby Darin. In his own best work, Spacey has achieved genius; he is better as an actor than Darin ever was as a singer." Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden is an American writer, music critic, film critic, and poet.Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1963...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
felt that "with Beyond the Sea, Spacey crawls back from his doomed quest to be a Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
-like everyman to his niche on the underbelly of Hollywood's pantheon. The movie's a mess, and at 45, Spacey is far too old to play Darin. Yet the star captures his desperation, his braggadocio, and yes, his magnetism." Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...
, writing in Rolling Stone magazine, believed Spacey could not prevent "the movie from groaning under the weight of biopic clichés. But the actor forges a bond with his subject that rights all wrongs. Doing his own singing (an uncanny imitation), Spacey is a marvel."
Box office, awards and home media
The film opened in limited releaseLimited release
Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....
in the United States on December 17, 2004 and went into wide release
Wide release
Wide release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing nationally . Specifically, a movie is considered to be in wide release when it is on 600 screens or more in the United States and Canada.In the US, films holding an NC-17 rating almost never have a...
on December 29. It grossed $6,318,709 in the US and $2,128,906 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $8,447,615. It was declared a box office bomb
Box office bomb
The phrase box office bomb refers to a film for which the production and marketing costs greatly exceeded the revenue regained by the movie studio. This should not be confused with Hollywood accounting when official figures show large losses, yet the movie is a financial success.A film's financial...
because it did not make back its $25 million budget. On June 7, 2005, the film was released on DVD in widescreen anamorphic
Widescreen
Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....
format for Region 1
DVD region code
DVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
markets. It features two Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital is the name for audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. It was originally called Dolby Stereo Digital until 1994. Except for Dolby TrueHD, the audio compression is lossy. The first use of Dolby Digital was to provide digital sound in cinemas from 35mm film prints...
English audio tracks (one in 2.0 Stereo and the other in 5.1 Surround Sound), director's commentary
Audio commentary
On disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...
by Spacey, and a making-of
Making-of
In cinema, a making-of, also known as behind-the-scenes, is a documentary film that features the production of a film or television program...
featurette.
Spacey was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
The Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy was first awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as a separate category in 1951...
but lost to Jamie Foxx
Jamie Foxx
Eric Marlon Bishop , professionally known as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, singer-songwriter, stand-up comedian, and talk radio host. As an actor, his work in the film Ray earned him the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actor as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a...
for Ray
Ray (film)
Ray is a 2004 biographical film focusing on 30 years of the life of rhythm and blues musician Ray Charles. The independently produced film was directed by Taylor Hackford and starred Jamie Foxx in the title role; Foxx received an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance.Charles was set to...
. He and Phil Ramone
Phil Ramone
Phil Ramone is a South-African violinist, composer, recording engineer, and record producer.-Biography:As a young child in South Africa, Ramone was a musical prodigy, beginning to play the violin at age three and performing for Queen Elizabeth II at age ten...
were also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, but lost to the producers of Ray
Ray (soundtrack)
Ray is the soundtrack of the 2004 film Ray starring Jamie Foxx , Kerry Washington, Terrence Howard, Clifton Powell and Regina King...
.