Collateral (film)
Encyclopedia
Collateral is a 2004 crime thriller film starring Tom Cruise
and Jamie Foxx
. It was directed by Michael Mann and written by Stuart Beattie
. It was Mann's first feature film to be shot mostly with high-definition cameras. Mann had previously used the format for portions of Ali
and for his CBS drama Robbery Homicide Division
.
The film is set in Los Angeles, California
. In an HBO movie review, director Michael Mann stated that the film takes place on the night of January 24 to 25, 2004 from 6:30 PM to 5:40 AM. Foxx was widely praised for his performance and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
.
) drives U.S. Justice Department prosecutor Annie Farrell (Jada Pinkett Smith
) to her office building to spend the night preparing for a pending federal grand jury
drug indictment
case convening the following day. Annie takes a liking to Max, leaving her business card as he drops her off. Vincent (Tom Cruise
) a former special operator
hails the cab next, explaining he is in town for one night closing a real estate deal and bribes Max with US$
600 on the pretense of chauffeuring him to his five appointments. As Max waits at the first stop, Vincent enters an apartment complex and shoots drug dealer Ramone Ayala. Ayala unexpectedly falls out of the window directly onto the cab, forcing Vincent to reveal himself as a hitman
. He coerces Max to hide the body in the trunk and continue with their arrangement.
On the way to the second stop, Max is pulled over by police due to the damage from Ayala's impact. The officers prepare to have the cab towed but are summoned to a higher priority call and abandon the cab seconds before they were about to discover the corpse in the trunk. Vincent then leaves Max tied to the steering wheel in an alley as he murders attorney Sylvester Clarke in his condominium. Max calls for help from passersby who proceed to steal his wallet and Vincent's briefcase; Vincent returns in time to shoot the two thugs in the chest and forehead at point blank range. He then brings Max to a jazz club under the guise of having a few drinks with club owner Daniel Baker (Barry Shabaka Henley
). After the club closes, Max witnesses Vincent execute Baker when he incorrectly answers a question about jazz legend Miles Davis
. Shocked, Max suffers a panic attack
.
Vincent then insists they visit Max's mother Ida (Irma P. Hall
) in the hospital to avoid breaking routine. He pretends to be Max's business colleague and develops a rapport with Ida, which upsets Max to the point that he runs out of the hospital with the briefcase and tosses it off a bridge overpass onto the freeway below. With his hit list now destroyed, Vincent forces Max to enter a Hispanic nightclub to obtain a backup copy from the contractor, threatening to murder Max's mother otherwise. Acting as Vincent, Max meets with drug lord
Felix Reyes-Torrena (Javier Bardem
) and successfully acquires the USB flash drive
containing details of the last two targets. Felix orders his men to follow "Vincent" and eliminate him should he fail. Vincent uses the cab's mount computer to direct Max to a nightclub called Fever and the fourth target: Korean gangster Peter Lim.
Meanwhile, LAPD Detective Ray Fanning (Mark Ruffalo
) uncovers the connection between the three victims and reports his finding to FBI Special Agent
Frank Pedrosa (Bruce McGill
), who identifies them as witnesses for the pending indictment case against Felix. Pedrosa assembles backup to secure their final witness, Lim, and converges on the crowded nightclub simultaneously with Vincent and Felix's men. Vincent manages to execute all of Lim's guards, Felix's hitmen, and Lim himself, and then slips out of the club amid the chaos following the gun fight. Fanning rescues Max and smuggles him outside but is killed by Vincent, who beckons Max back into the cab. Following their hasty getaway, the two get into a critical war of words over their lives. Angrily responding to Vincent's accusations of passiveness, Max speeds through the empty downtown streets and deliberately crashes the cab. Vincent takes off on foot before a police officer arrives at the wreck and notices the corpse in the trunk.
Max spots Annie's profile on the cab computer and, realizing she is Vincent's final target, overpowers the officer and takes Vincent's gun. He runs to Annie's building and arrives at her office in time to prevent the assassination by shooting Vincent and sufficiently wounding him enough for them to escape. Max flees with Annie, boarding a metro rail train with Vincent in close pursuit. Boxed in and left with no other option, Max makes his last stand, uncharacteristically asserting himself to protect Annie. Firing blindly as the train goes into a tunnel and the lights go out, Max mortally wounds Vincent in a face-to-face shootout while emerging unscathed. Vincent slumps into a seat and expires as he repeats an anecdote heard earlier about a man who died on a train and went unnoticed for six hours. Max and Annie then get off at the next station, leaving Vincent's body on the train as it continues on in the breaking dawn of a new day.
n writer Stuart Beattie took a cab home from Sydney airport, and had the idea of a homicidal maniac sitting in the back of a cab with the driver nonchalantly entering into conversation with him, trusting his passenger implicitly. Beattie drafted his idea into a two-page treatment entitled "The Last Domino", then later began writing the screenplay. The original story centered around an African-American female cop who witnesses a hit, and the romance between the cab driver and his then librarian girlfriend. The film has limited resemblance to the original treatment.
Beattie was waiting tables when he ran into friend Julie Richardson, whom he had met on a UCLA Screenwriting Extension course. Richardson had become a producer, and was searching for projects for Edge City, Frank Darabont, Rob Fried and Chuck Russell's company created to make low budget genre movies for HBO. Beattie later pitched her his idea of "The Last Domino". Richardson pitched the idea to Frank Darabont
, who brought the team in for a meeting, including Beattie, and set up the project under Edge City. After two drafts, HBO passed on the project. At a general meeting at DreamWorks
with executive Marc Haimes, Beattie mentioned the script. Marc Haimes immediately contacted Richardson, read the script overnight, and DreamWorks put in an offer the following day.
Collateral sat on DreamWorks development books for three years. Mimi Leder
was initially attached to direct, it then passed on to Janusz Kamiński
. It wasn't until Russell Crowe
became interested in playing Vincent that the project started generating any heat. Crowe brought Michael Mann on board, but the constant delays meant that Crowe left the project. Mann immediately went to Tom Cruise with the idea of him playing the hitman and Adam Sandler
as the cabbie.
Beattie wanted the studio to cast Robert De Niro
as Max (once again making him a taxi driver, though the exact opposite of Travis Bickle
). However the studio refused, insisting they wanted a younger actor in the role.
Michael Mann chose to use the Viper FilmStream High-Definition Camera to film many of the scenes of Collateral, the first such use in a major motion picture. There are many scenes in the movie where the use of a digital camera is evident, in particular, scenes where the Los Angeles skyline or landscape is visible in the background. One event of note was the filming of the coyote
s running across the road; the low-light capability allowed Mann to spontaneously film the animals that just happened to pass, without having to set up lighting for the shot. Mann would later employ the same camera for the filming of Miami Vice
.
The sequence in the nightclub was shot in 35mm.
The film was co-produced by DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures
. The former studio would handle North American rights, while the latter held international rights. Upon Paramount's purchase of DreamWorks in 2006, they also acquired the US/Canadian rights. Paramount released the film on Blu-ray on March 30, 2010 (the first Region 1 video release that they distributed, previous releases were distributed by Universal Studios
).
, 86% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 224 reviews. On Metacritic
, the film had an average score of 71 out of 100, based on 41 reviews. Tom Cruise went on to garner critical acclaim, while Foxx got several award nominations.
The film opened August 6, 2004 in 3,188 theaters in the United States
and Canada
and grossed $24.7 million its opening weekend, ranking number 1 at the box office. It remained in theaters for 14 weeks and eventually grossed $101,005,703 in the United States and Canada. In other countries it grossed a total of $116,758,588 for a total worldwide gross of $217,764,291.
Richard Roeper
placed Collateral as his 10th favorite movie of 2004. The film was voted as the 9th best film set in Los Angeles in the last 25 years by a group of Los Angeles Times
writers and editors with two criteria: "The movie had to communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience, and only one film per director was allowed on the list".
Film and Television Music Awards
2005 Academy Awards
(Oscars)
2005 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (Saturn Award
s)
2005 American Society of Cinematographers
2005 Art Directors Guild
2005 BAFTA
Film Awards
2005 Black Reel Awards
2005 Broadcast Film Critics Association
Awards
2005 Golden Globe Awards
2005 MTV Movie Award
.
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....
and 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...
. It was directed by Michael Mann and written by Stuart Beattie
Stuart Beattie
Stuart Beattie is an Australian screenwriter and film director. He attended Knox Grammar School, in Sydney, Australia, where his mother, Sandra, was a languages teacher, and later Charles Sturt University in Bathurst.-Filmography:...
. It was Mann's first feature film to be shot mostly with high-definition cameras. Mann had previously used the format for portions of Ali
Ali (film)
Ali is a 2001 American biographical film directed by Michael Mann. The film tells the story of boxing icon Muhammad Ali, played by Will Smith, from 1964 to 1974 featuring his capture as of the heavyweight title from Sonny Liston , his conversion to Islam, criticism of the Vietnam War, banishment...
and for his CBS drama Robbery Homicide Division
Robbery Homicide Division
Robbery Homicide Division was an American police procedural television series on CBS, created by Barry Schindel with executive producer Michael Mann.-Premise:...
.
The film is set in Los Angeles, California
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...
. In an HBO movie review, director Michael Mann stated that the film takes place on the night of January 24 to 25, 2004 from 6:30 PM to 5:40 AM. Foxx was widely praised for his performance and was 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...
.
Plot
Nightshift cab driver Max Durocher (Jamie FoxxJamie 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...
) drives U.S. Justice Department prosecutor Annie Farrell (Jada Pinkett Smith
Jada Pinkett Smith
Jada Koren Pinkett Smith is an American actress, producer, director, author, singer-songwriter, and businesswoman. She began her career in 1990, when she made a guest appearance in the short-lived sitcom True Colors. She starred in A Different World, produced by Bill Cosby, and she featured...
) to her office building to spend the night preparing for a pending federal grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
drug indictment
Indictment
An indictment , in the common-law legal system, is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that maintain the concept of felonies, the serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that lack the concept of felonies often use that of an indictable offence—an...
case convening the following day. Annie takes a liking to Max, leaving her business card as he drops her off. Vincent (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....
) a former special operator
Special operations
Special operations are military operations that are considered "special" .Special operations are typically performed independently or in conjunction with conventional military operations. The primary goal is to achieve a political or military objective where a conventional force requirement does...
hails the cab next, explaining he is in town for one night closing a real estate deal and bribes Max with US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
600 on the pretense of chauffeuring him to his five appointments. As Max waits at the first stop, Vincent enters an apartment complex and shoots drug dealer Ramone Ayala. Ayala unexpectedly falls out of the window directly onto the cab, forcing Vincent to reveal himself as a hitman
Contract killing
Contract killing is a form of murder, in which one party hires another party to kill a target individual or group of people. It involves an illegal agreement between two parties in which one party agrees to kill the target in exchange for consideration, monetary, or otherwise. The hiring party may...
. He coerces Max to hide the body in the trunk and continue with their arrangement.
On the way to the second stop, Max is pulled over by police due to the damage from Ayala's impact. The officers prepare to have the cab towed but are summoned to a higher priority call and abandon the cab seconds before they were about to discover the corpse in the trunk. Vincent then leaves Max tied to the steering wheel in an alley as he murders attorney Sylvester Clarke in his condominium. Max calls for help from passersby who proceed to steal his wallet and Vincent's briefcase; Vincent returns in time to shoot the two thugs in the chest and forehead at point blank range. He then brings Max to a jazz club under the guise of having a few drinks with club owner Daniel Baker (Barry Shabaka Henley
Barry Shabaka Henley
Barry Shabaka Henley is an American character actor. Henley is a fixture in many films, most often the films of director Michael Mann, having worked with the director four times....
). After the club closes, Max witnesses Vincent execute Baker when he incorrectly answers a question about jazz legend Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
. Shocked, Max suffers a panic attack
Panic attack
Panic attacks are periods of intense fear or apprehension that are of sudden onset and of relatively brief duration. Panic attacks usually begin abruptly, reach a peak within 10 minutes, and subside over the next several hours...
.
Vincent then insists they visit Max's mother Ida (Irma P. Hall
Irma P. Hall
Irma P. Hall is an African American actress who has appeared in numerous films and television shows since the 1970s. She is best known for playing matriarchal figures the films A Family Thing, Soul Food and The Ladykillers....
) in the hospital to avoid breaking routine. He pretends to be Max's business colleague and develops a rapport with Ida, which upsets Max to the point that he runs out of the hospital with the briefcase and tosses it off a bridge overpass onto the freeway below. With his hit list now destroyed, Vincent forces Max to enter a Hispanic nightclub to obtain a backup copy from the contractor, threatening to murder Max's mother otherwise. Acting as Vincent, Max meets with drug lord
Drug lord
A drug lord, drug baron or kingpin is the term used to describe a person who controls a sizable network of persons involved in the illegal drugs trade. Such figures are often difficult to bring to justice, as they might never be directly in possession of something illegal, but are insulated from...
Felix Reyes-Torrena (Javier Bardem
Javier Bardem
Javier Ángel Encinas Bardem is a Spanish actor. In 2007 he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as sociopathic assassin Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, and has also garnered critical acclaim for roles in films such as Jamón, jamón, Carne trémula, Boca a boca, Los...
) and successfully acquires the USB flash drive
USB flash drive
A flash drive is a data storage device that consists of flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus interface. flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than a floppy disk. Most weigh less than 30 g...
containing details of the last two targets. Felix orders his men to follow "Vincent" and eliminate him should he fail. Vincent uses the cab's mount computer to direct Max to a nightclub called Fever and the fourth target: Korean gangster Peter Lim.
Meanwhile, LAPD Detective Ray Fanning (Mark Ruffalo
Mark Ruffalo
Mark Alan Ruffalo is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He starred in films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Zodiac, Shutter Island, Just Like Heaven, You Can Count on Me and The Kids Are All Right for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best...
) uncovers the connection between the three victims and reports his finding to FBI Special Agent
Special agent
Special agent is usually the title for a detective or investigator for a state, county, municipal, federal or tribal government. An agent is a worker for any federal agency, and a secret agent is one who works for an intelligence agency....
Frank Pedrosa (Bruce McGill
Bruce McGill
Bruce Travis McGill is an American actor who has an extensive list of credits in film and television. He is perhaps best known for his role as Jack Dalton on the television series MacGyver and as Daniel Simpson "D-Day" Day in National Lampoon's Animal House.-Early life:McGill was born in San...
), who identifies them as witnesses for the pending indictment case against Felix. Pedrosa assembles backup to secure their final witness, Lim, and converges on the crowded nightclub simultaneously with Vincent and Felix's men. Vincent manages to execute all of Lim's guards, Felix's hitmen, and Lim himself, and then slips out of the club amid the chaos following the gun fight. Fanning rescues Max and smuggles him outside but is killed by Vincent, who beckons Max back into the cab. Following their hasty getaway, the two get into a critical war of words over their lives. Angrily responding to Vincent's accusations of passiveness, Max speeds through the empty downtown streets and deliberately crashes the cab. Vincent takes off on foot before a police officer arrives at the wreck and notices the corpse in the trunk.
Max spots Annie's profile on the cab computer and, realizing she is Vincent's final target, overpowers the officer and takes Vincent's gun. He runs to Annie's building and arrives at her office in time to prevent the assassination by shooting Vincent and sufficiently wounding him enough for them to escape. Max flees with Annie, boarding a metro rail train with Vincent in close pursuit. Boxed in and left with no other option, Max makes his last stand, uncharacteristically asserting himself to protect Annie. Firing blindly as the train goes into a tunnel and the lights go out, Max mortally wounds Vincent in a face-to-face shootout while emerging unscathed. Vincent slumps into a seat and expires as he repeats an anecdote heard earlier about a man who died on a train and went unnoticed for six hours. Max and Annie then get off at the next station, leaving Vincent's body on the train as it continues on in the breaking dawn of a new day.
Cast
- Tom CruiseTom CruiseThomas 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....
as Vincent, a former special operator and professional hitman hired by middlemen to terminate four witnesses and a prosecutor. - Jamie FoxxJamie FoxxEric 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...
as Max Durocher, a taxi driver whom Vincent employs to drive him to the locations of the hits. - Jada Pinkett SmithJada Pinkett SmithJada Koren Pinkett Smith is an American actress, producer, director, author, singer-songwriter, and businesswoman. She began her career in 1990, when she made a guest appearance in the short-lived sitcom True Colors. She starred in A Different World, produced by Bill Cosby, and she featured...
as Annie Farrell, the lawyer prosecuting Felix Reyes-Torrena. She is Vincent's last hit, but is saved by Max. - Mark RuffaloMark RuffaloMark Alan Ruffalo is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He starred in films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Zodiac, Shutter Island, Just Like Heaven, You Can Count on Me and The Kids Are All Right for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best...
as Ray Fanning, an LAPD detective on the tail of Vincent and Max. - Peter BergPeter BergPeter Berg is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is known for directing films such as Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom, The Rundown, Hancock and Battleship. He also developed the television series Friday Night Lights, which was adapted from the film he directed. As an actor...
as Richard Weidner, Fanning's partner - Bruce McGillBruce McGillBruce Travis McGill is an American actor who has an extensive list of credits in film and television. He is perhaps best known for his role as Jack Dalton on the television series MacGyver and as Daniel Simpson "D-Day" Day in National Lampoon's Animal House.-Early life:McGill was born in San...
as Frank Pedrosa, an FBI agent staking out El Rodeo, Felix Reyes-Torrena's club. - Irma P. HallIrma P. HallIrma P. Hall is an African American actress who has appeared in numerous films and television shows since the 1970s. She is best known for playing matriarchal figures the films A Family Thing, Soul Food and The Ladykillers....
as Ida Durocher, Max's mother - Barry Shabaka HenleyBarry Shabaka HenleyBarry Shabaka Henley is an American character actor. Henley is a fixture in many films, most often the films of director Michael Mann, having worked with the director four times....
as Daniel Baker, a jazz club owner. He is the third witness to be killed. - Richard T. JonesRichard T. JonesRichard Timothy Jones is an American film and television actor.Jones was born in Kobe, Japan and raised in Carson, California. He is the son of Lorene, a computer analyst, and Clarence Jones, a professional baseball player and the hitting instructor for the Cleveland Indians. He also has an older...
as Traffic Cop #1 - Klea ScottKlea ScottKlea Scott is a Canadian actress. She is known for her role as Emma Hollis on the Fox television series Millennium. Her most notable films are Minority Report and Collateral.-Career:...
as Zee, one of Pedrosa's team members - Bodhi ElfmanBodhi ElfmanBodhi Elfman , also known as Bodhi Pine Elfman, is an American actor.-Career:Elfman has had film roles in Mercury Rising, Collateral, Godzilla and Armageddon, and smaller parts in The Mod Squad, Keeping the Faith and Gone in 60 Seconds.Elfman starred in the UPN television series Freedom, alongside...
as Young Professional Man - Debi MazarDebi MazarDeborah "Debi" Mazar is an American actress, perhaps best known for her Jersey Girl-type roles; as sharp-tongued women in independent films; and for her recurring role as press agent Shauna Roberts on the HBO series Entourage.-Early life:...
as Young Professional Woman - Javier BardemJavier BardemJavier Ángel Encinas Bardem is a Spanish actor. In 2007 he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as sociopathic assassin Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, and has also garnered critical acclaim for roles in films such as Jamón, jamón, Carne trémula, Boca a boca, Los...
as Felix Reyes-Torrena - Emilio RiveraEmilio Rivera-Early life:Rivera was born in San Antonio, Texas of Mexican descent. He is the oldest child of four brothers and three sisters. As a young boy, he and his family moved to Elysian Valley, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.-Acting career:...
as Paco, one of Felix's bodyguards and hitmen - Jamie McBride as Traffic Cop #2
- Thomas Rosales, Jr.Thomas Rosales, Jr.Thomas Rosales, Jr. is an American film extra and stunt man who has appeared in more than one hundred and fifty movies. His first known appearance as a stuntman was in Battle for the Planet of the Apes in 1973....
as Ramon Ayala, a low-level player in the exotic substances business. He is the first witness to be killed. - Inmo as Peter Lim, the owner of the club Fever. He is the fourth witness to be killed.
- Jason StathamJason StathamJason Statham born 12 September1967) is an English actor and former diver, known for his roles in the Guy Ritchie crime films Revolver, Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels...
as Airport Man - Angelo Tiffe as Sylvester Clarke, a former criminal attorney who represented Ramone. He is the second witness to be killed.
Production
When he was 17, AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n writer Stuart Beattie took a cab home from Sydney airport, and had the idea of a homicidal maniac sitting in the back of a cab with the driver nonchalantly entering into conversation with him, trusting his passenger implicitly. Beattie drafted his idea into a two-page treatment entitled "The Last Domino", then later began writing the screenplay. The original story centered around an African-American female cop who witnesses a hit, and the romance between the cab driver and his then librarian girlfriend. The film has limited resemblance to the original treatment.
Beattie was waiting tables when he ran into friend Julie Richardson, whom he had met on a UCLA Screenwriting Extension course. Richardson had become a producer, and was searching for projects for Edge City, Frank Darabont, Rob Fried and Chuck Russell's company created to make low budget genre movies for HBO. Beattie later pitched her his idea of "The Last Domino". Richardson pitched the idea to Frank Darabont
Frank Darabont
Frank Darabont is a Hungarian-American film director, screenwriter and producer who has been nominated for three Academy Awards and a Golden Globe. He has directed the films The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist, all based on stories by Stephen King...
, who brought the team in for a meeting, including Beattie, and set up the project under Edge City. After two drafts, HBO passed on the project. At a general meeting at DreamWorks
DreamWorks
DreamWorks Pictures, also known as DreamWorks, LLC, DreamWorks SKG, DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC, DreamWorks Studios or DW Studios, LLC, is an American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games and television programming...
with executive Marc Haimes, Beattie mentioned the script. Marc Haimes immediately contacted Richardson, read the script overnight, and DreamWorks put in an offer the following day.
Collateral sat on DreamWorks development books for three years. Mimi Leder
Mimi Leder
Mimi Leder is an American film director. She was the first female graduate of the AFI Conservatory in 1973.-Movie career:...
was initially attached to direct, it then passed on to Janusz Kamiński
Janusz Kaminski
Janusz Zygmunt Kamiński is a Polish cinematographer and film director. He has photographed all of Steven Spielberg's films since 1993's Schindler's List.-Life and career:...
. It wasn't until Russell Crowe
Russell Crowe
Russell Ira Crowe is a New Zealander Australian actor , film producer and musician. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a...
became interested in playing Vincent that the project started generating any heat. Crowe brought Michael Mann on board, but the constant delays meant that Crowe left the project. Mann immediately went to Tom Cruise with the idea of him playing the hitman and Adam Sandler
Adam Sandler
Adam Richard Sandler is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, musician, and film producer.After becoming a Saturday Night Live cast member, Sandler went on to star in several Hollywood feature films that grossed over $100 million at the box office...
as the cabbie.
Beattie wanted the studio to cast Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...
as Max (once again making him a taxi driver, though the exact opposite of Travis Bickle
Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy...
). However the studio refused, insisting they wanted a younger actor in the role.
Michael Mann chose to use the Viper FilmStream High-Definition Camera to film many of the scenes of Collateral, the first such use in a major motion picture. There are many scenes in the movie where the use of a digital camera is evident, in particular, scenes where the Los Angeles skyline or landscape is visible in the background. One event of note was the filming of the coyote
Coyote
The coyote , also known as the American jackal or the prairie wolf, is a species of canine found throughout North and Central America, ranging from Panama in the south, north through Mexico, the United States and Canada...
s running across the road; the low-light capability allowed Mann to spontaneously film the animals that just happened to pass, without having to set up lighting for the shot. Mann would later employ the same camera for the filming of Miami Vice
Miami Vice (film)
Miami Vice is a 2006 American crime drama film about two Miami police detectives, Crockett and Tubbs, who go undercover to fight drug trafficking operations. The film is a loose adaptation of the 1980s TV series of the same name, written, produced, and directed by Michael Mann...
.
The sequence in the nightclub was shot in 35mm.
The film was co-produced by DreamWorks and 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...
. The former studio would handle North American rights, while the latter held international rights. Upon Paramount's purchase of DreamWorks in 2006, they also acquired the US/Canadian rights. Paramount released the film on Blu-ray on March 30, 2010 (the first Region 1 video release that they distributed, previous releases were distributed by Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
).
Reception
The film received positive reviews, with particular praise going to Tom Cruise's and Jamie Foxx's performance. On the review aggregator 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...
, 86% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 224 reviews. On 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,...
, the film had an average score of 71 out of 100, based on 41 reviews. Tom Cruise went on to garner critical acclaim, while Foxx got several award nominations.
The film opened August 6, 2004 in 3,188 theaters in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and grossed $24.7 million its opening weekend, ranking number 1 at the box office. It remained in theaters for 14 weeks and eventually grossed $101,005,703 in the United States and Canada. In other countries it grossed a total of $116,758,588 for a total worldwide gross of $217,764,291.
Richard Roeper
Richard Roeper
Richard E. Roeper is an American columnist and film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times and now a co-host on The Roe Conn Show on WLS-AM...
placed Collateral as his 10th favorite movie of 2004. The film was voted as the 9th best film set in Los Angeles in the last 25 years by a group of Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
writers and editors with two criteria: "The movie had to communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience, and only one film per director was allowed on the list".
Awards and nominations
2005 ASCAPAmerican Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization that protects its members' musical copyrights by monitoring public performances of their music, whether via a broadcast or live performance, and compensating them...
Film and Television Music Awards
- Won - Top Box Office Film — James Newton HowardJames Newton HowardJames Newton Howard is an American composer best known for his scores to motion pictures. He is one of the most popular and respected composers for cinema, and has scored over 100 films...
, Antonio PintoAntonio Pinto (composer)Antonio Pinto is a Brazilian film score composer. He is the son of the famous cartoonist Ziraldo and the brother of film-maker Daniela Thomas. His work earned him a World Soundtrack Award and an ASCAP award, as well as a nomination in the Best Original Song category at the 65th Golden Globe Awards...
2005 Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
(Oscars)
- Nominated - Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting RoleAcademy Award for Best Supporting ActorPerformance 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...
— Jamie Foxx - Nominated - Best EditingAcademy Award for Film EditingThe Academy Award for Film Editing is one of the annual awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Nominations for this award are closely correlated with the Academy Award for Best Picture. Since 1981, every film selected as Best Picture has also been nominated for the Film Editing...
— Jim MillerJim Miller (film editor)Jim Miller is an American film editor. Along with Paul Rubell, Miller was nominated for an Academy Award for Film Editing for the film Collateral ....
, Paul RubellPaul RubellPaul Rubell is a film editor. His career spans 25 years in both film and television.Rubell obtained his bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of California, Los Angeles. Rubell worked for a time with editor Lou Lombardo. His first editing credit was for the film The Final Terror...
2005 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (Saturn Award
Saturn Award
The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...
s)
- Nominated - Best Actor (Film) — Tom Cruise
- Nominated - Best DirectorSaturn Award for Best DirectionThe following is a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Direction:-Multiple Winners:*James Cameron - 5 awards*Steven Spielberg - 4 awards*Peter Jackson - 3 awards*Bryan Singer - 2 awards...
— Michael Mann - Nominated - Best Action/Adventure/Thriller FilmSaturn Award for Best Action/Adventure/Thriller FilmThe following are a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film:...
- Nominated - Best WritingSaturn Award for Best WritingThe following is a list of people who have won the Saturn Award for Best Writing.-Multiple Winners:*James Cameron - 3 awards*Christopher Nolan - 3 awards*William Peter Blatty - 3 awards-External links:* http://www.saturnawards.org/past.html#writing...
— Stuart Beattie
2005 American Society of Cinematographers
American Society of Cinematographers
The American Society of Cinematographers is an educational, cultural, and professional organization. It is not a labor union, and it is not a guild. Membership is by invitation and is extended only to directors of photography and special effects experts with distinguished credits in the film...
- Nominated - Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases — Dion BeebeDion BeebeDion Beebe, A.C.S., ASC is an Australian cinematographer.Originally from Brisbane, Australia, his family moved to Cape Town, South Africa in 1972...
, Paul Cameron
2005 Art Directors Guild
Art Directors Guild
The Art Directors Guild is an American labor union and branch of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees representing almost 2,000 motion picture and television professionals....
- Nominated - Feature Film - Contemporary Film — David Wasco, Daniel T. Dorrance, Aran Mann, Gerald Sullivan, Christopher Tandon
2005 BAFTA
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
Film Awards
- Won - Best Cinematography — Dion BeebeDion BeebeDion Beebe, A.C.S., ASC is an Australian cinematographer.Originally from Brisbane, Australia, his family moved to Cape Town, South Africa in 1972...
, Paul Cameron - Nominated - Best Actor in a Supporting Role — Jamie Foxx
- Nominated - David Lean Award for Direction — Michael Mann
- Nominated - Best Editing — Jim Miller, Paul Rubell
- Nominated - Best Screenplay (Original) — Stuart Beattie
- Nominated - Best Sound — Elliott Koretz, Lee Orloff, Michael Minkler, Myron Nettinga
2005 Black Reel Awards
Black Reel Awards
The Black Reel Awards began in 2000 and were designed to annually recognize and celebrate the achievements of black people in feature, independent and television films...
- Won - Best Supporting Actor — Jamie Foxx
- Nominated - Best Supporting Actress — Jada Pinkett Smith
2005 Broadcast Film Critics Association
Broadcast Film Critics Association
The Broadcast Film Critics Association is the largest film critics organization in the United States and Canada , representing approximately 250 television, radio and online critics....
Awards
- Nominated - Best Supporting ActorBFCA Critics' Choice Award for Best Supporting ActorThe Critics' Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor is one of the awards given to people working in the motion picture industry by the Broadcast Film Critics Association.-List of winners and nominees:...
— Jamie Foxx - Nominated - Best PictureBFCA Critics' Choice Award for Best PictureThe Critics Choice Award for Best Picture is one of the awards given to people working in the motion picture industry by the Broadcast Film Critics Association.-1990s:*1995: Sense and Sensibility *1996: Fargo **Big Night...
2005 Golden Globe Awards
- Nominated - Best Supporting Actor - Jamie Foxx
2005 MTV Movie Award
- Nominated - Best Villain - Tom Cruise
Soundtrack
The Collateral soundtrack was released on August 3, 2004 by Hip-O RecordsHip-O Records
Hip-O Records is a record label, currently part of Universal Music Group, which specializes in reissues and compilations. Their Hip-O Select label is currently in the midst of releasing the Complete Motown Singles, a series of fourteen box sets which include both sides of every 45 from Motown...
.