Evolution (2001 film)
Evolution | |
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Directed by | Ivan Reitman |
Screenplay by |
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Story by | Don Jakoby |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Michael Chapman |
Edited by | |
Music by | John Powell |
Production company | |
Distributed by | |
Release date |
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Running time | 102 minutes[1] |
Country | United States[1] |
Language | English |
Budget | $80 million[2] |
Box office | $98.4 million[2] |
Evolution is a 2001 American
Evolution was based on a story by Don Jakoby, who originally wrote it as a serious science-fiction horror thriller, until Reitman hired David Diamond and David Weissman to re-write much of the script into a comedy which Jakoby liked. Shooting took place from October 19, 2000, to February 7, 2001, in California and Page, Arizona, with an $80 million budget.
The film was released by DreamWorks Pictures in the United States on June 8, 2001. Evolution received mixed-to-negative reviews from film critics and grossed $98.4 million at the box office worldwide. A short-lived animated series, Alienators: Evolution Continues, loosely based on the film, was broadcast months after the film was released.
Plot
A large
The professors quickly learn that the meteor harbors extra-terrestrial
The
Allison questions Ira on the stand, where he reveals he was discharged from the army in the summer of 1997 after he conducted an experiment in which he developed an anthrax vaccine and then administered it to nearly 140,000 soldiers. The side effects were severe, resulting in his dismissal from his position as a top-level researcher at USAMRIID.
Upon returning to the lab, Ira and Harry discover that Woodman has stolen their research, so they infiltrate the base in disguise to get another meteor sample. They discover that the caverns now harbor an alien rainforest teeming with tropical plant and animal life, including flying insects and carnivorous plants.
That night, a large reptilian creature fatally mauls the owner of a local country club where Wayne works, and the next day a dog-sized frog-like animal attacks two older women in their home. Ira, Harry and Wayne find a valley behind the home filled with suffocating dinosaur-like creatures, which they theorize cannot yet breathe oxygen and are escaping from the meteor site through the local caverns. However, a newly-born flying creature quickly adapts to the earth's oxygen, takes off, and terrorizes a shopping mall before the trio gun it down.
With the media becoming increasingly aware of the alien attacks,
Disgusted, Allison quits the CDC and joins Ira's crew. Ira later realizes that intense heat triggers the aliens' DNA and that the initial impact to Earth activated its evolution. Allison tries to warn Woodman but he ignores Allison's pleas so the town begins evacuating for the impending bombing strike.
Looking at the positions of nitrogen and carbon on the periodic table, Ira theorizes that selenium might be as toxic to the aliens as arsenic is to Earth's carbon life. Rather surprisingly, two of his dumbest students, Deke and Danny Donald, recall that selenium sulfide is the active ingredient in Head & Shoulders hair shampoo, which they decide to use against the alien organisms.
Wayne procures a firetruck and fills it with the shampoo with help from Ira's college students. However, Woodman's napalm strike goes off ahead of schedule before the team can try their plan, triggering the entire alien ecosystem to fuse together into a single immense amoeba-like blob that stands hundreds of feet tall.
The giant mass begins multiplying through mitosis, which it would do infinitely until the country was overtaken by thousands of these gigantic creatures. The team maneuvers their firetruck underneath the mass and discovers a
Cast
- David Duchovny as Colonel (Ret.) Dr. Ira Kane
- Julianne Moore as Dr. Allison Reed
- Orlando Jones as Professor Harry Phineas Block
- Seann William Scott as Wayne Grey
- Ted Levine as Brigadier General Russell Woodman
- Ethan Suplee as Deke Donald
- Michael Boweras Danny Donald
- Pat Kilbane as Officer Sam Johnson
- Ty Burrell as Colonel Flemming
- Dan Aykroyd as Governor Lewis[3]
- Katharine Towne as Nadine
- Gregory Itzin as Barry Cartwright
- Ashley Clark as Lieutenant Cryer
- Stephanie Hodge as Jill Mason
- Kyle Gass as Officer Drake
- Sarah Silverman as Denise
- Jerry Trainor as Tommy
- Miriam Flynn as Grace
- Steven Gilborn as Judge Guilder
- Richard Moll as Fire Training Inspector
- Tom Davis and Gary Kent as the Governor's Aides
- Mary Pat Gleason as a Customer
- John Cho as a Student
Production
Development
Evolution was based on a story by Don Jakoby, who originally wrote his draft in 1998 as a serious science fiction horror thriller that was described as "humorless and violent" and "The Thing meets The Andromeda Strain", envisioning John Carpenter to helm his idea.[4] Ivan Reitman loved the script but saw potential in the film being successful as a comedy, calling it a "modern-day successor to Ghostbusters" he had always planned to make. Reitman hired writers David Diamond and David Weissman to re-write much of the script and combine it with elements of another screenplay, a comedy written by Todd Phillips and Scot Armstrong about three friends who hunt aliens.[5][3] Although Jakoby was initially upset about the script's change in tone and atmosphere, Diamond and Wiessman worked closely with him to ensure the final product was something he was happy with. The original script ended with the alien organisms evolving into an ultra-intelligent humanoid species that climaxed with a "battle of wits", but this ending was deemed not exciting enough and was replaced with the climax seen in the final film.
Reitman produced the film
Filming
Shooting took place from October 19, 2000 to February 7, 2001 in
Visual effects
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (October 2021) |
Tippett Studio was put in charge of designing over 18 various aliens in the film, each different from the last. Sony Pictures Imageworks handled the animation for the alien flatworm CGI sequence with the leech alien from the pool, designed by Peter Konig, the alien mosquito shape moving around within Harry's body and some additional VFX provided from Pacific Data Images. Studio ADI was responsible for the designs of the primate alien creatures.[11]
Music
The film's music score was composed by
Title | Artist | Written by |
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"Bombshell" | Powerman 5000 | Mike Tempesta and Michael Cummings |
"Out with a Bang" | Matt Mahaffey | Matt Mahaffey |
"Anyway the Main Thing Is" | Patty Larkin | Patty Larkin |
"Borderline" | Buckcherry | Devon Glenn
|
"Baby, Come On Over" | Samantha Mumba | Samantha Mumba, Arnthor Birgisson and Anders Bagge |
"Work It Out" | Brassy | Muffin Spencer, Stefan Gordon, Jonny Barrington and Karen Frost |
"Makin' Whoopee" | Walter Donaldson, Gus Kahn | Walter Donaldson, Gus Kahn |
"Parking Lot" | Morgan Nagler |
Morgan Nagler
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"You Are So Beautiful" | Bruce Fisher, Billy Preston | Bruce Fisher, Billy Preston |
"Play That Funky Music" | Wild Cherry | Rob Parissi |
Home media
The film was released on VHS and DVD on December 26, 2001.[13]
The film received a Blu-ray release in the United States on November 23, 2021 by Paramount Home Entertainment, while a Blu-ray release for the Columbia Pictures print of the film was released on April 22, 2024 in the United Kingdom by 88 Films.
Reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 43% based on 139 reviews, with an average score of 4.90/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Director Reitman tries to remake Ghostbusters, but his efforts are largely unsuccessful because the movie has too many comedic misfires."[14] On Metacritic, the film received a score of 40 based on 32 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[15] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B+ on scale of A to F.[16]
Todd McCarthy of Variety called it "a consistently amusing action romp".[17] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times the film 2.5 out of 4, and wrote: "It's not good, but it's nowhere near as bad as most recent comedies; it has real laughs, but it misses just as many real opportunities".[18] A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote: "The movie itself evolves in reverse, starting life as a moderately clever grab bag of high-concept noodling and half-witty badinage before descending into the primordial ooze of explosions and elaborate lower- intestinal gags".[19]
Television series
Evolution was made into an animated series called Alienators: Evolution Continues, which ran on Fox Kids from 2001 to 2002.
References
- ^ a b c d e "Evolution (2001)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved January 2, 2017.
- ^ a b "Evolution". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved January 2, 2017.
- ^ a b c d Ian Spelling (July 2001). "The Evolutionist". Starlog Magazine Issue 288. pp. 32–35.
- Christian Science Monitor.
- ^ Josh Weiss (June 8, 2019). "Writers of 'Evolution' reflect on project". Forbes.
- ^ a b c d Scott Tracy Griffin (August 2001). "Evolution". Cinefantastique Magazine. pp. 18–21.
- ^ Passa, Alex. "David Duchovny Showed No Remorse After Turning Down Star Wars Episode II Attack Of The Clones". The Things.com.
- ^ Willow Green (October 9, 2000). "Duchovny Saves The World". Empire.
- ^ "Evolution shopping mall location".
- ^ Bill Warren (June 2001). "Theories of Evolution". Starlog Magazine Issue 288. pp. 62–66.
- ^ omega (November 23, 2017). "Darwinian Nightmare".
- ^ Evolution Soundtrack SoundtrackINFO. Retrieved Dec. 27, 2013
- hive4media.com. Archivedfrom the original on December 23, 2001. Retrieved September 24, 2019.
- ^ "Evolution". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved December 21, 2022.
- ^ "Evolution". Metacritic. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
- ^ "Cinemascore". Archived from the original on December 20, 2018.
- ^ McCarthy, Todd (June 7, 2001). "Evolution". Variety.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (June 8, 2001). "Evolution movie review & film summary (2001)". Chicago Sun-Times.
- ^ Scott, A. O. (June 8, 2001). "FILM REVIEW; It's Big, It's Bad, It's Mutating Protoplasm". The New York Times.