The Sum of All Fears (film)
The Sum of All Fears | |
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Directed by | Phil Alden Robinson |
Screenplay by |
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Based on | The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy |
Produced by | Mace Neufeld |
Starring | |
Cinematography | John Lindley |
Edited by |
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Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time | 124 minutes[1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $68 million |
Box office | $194 million[2] |
The Sum of All Fears is a 2002 American
An Austrian Neo-Nazi plans to trigger a
The film was a
The Sum of All Fears received generally mixed reviews from critics. It is considered a major financial success, having a worldwide theatrical run of $193.9 million compared to its production budget of $68 million and related marketing costs.
Plot
In 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, an Israeli warplane carrying a nuclear bomb is shot down. In 2002, a Syrian scrap collector uncovers a large unexploded bomb buried in a field in the Golan Heights. He sells it to a South African black market arms trafficker named Olson, who recognizes it as the nuclear bomb that was lost during that war. He then sells it to a neo-nazi group led by Austrian billionaire Richard Dressler, whose aim is to start a war between the United States and Russia that will devastate them both, and leave a united fascist Europe to rule the world.
Ryan and his colleagues discern that a crate from the facility in Ukraine was flown to the Canary Islands, then sent to Baltimore on a cargo ship. Ryan warns Cabot, who is attending a football game in the city with U.S. President Fowler, about a bomb threat. Fowler is evacuated before the bomb detonates, but the stadium is destroyed and Cabot is mortally wounded. Worsening matters, a corrupt Russian Air Force general who has been paid by Dressler sends warplanes to attack the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier, heavily damaging it and leading the U.S. to believe that Russia perpetrated the nuclear bombing.
Ryan learns from a radiation assessment team that the isotopic signature from the nuclear blast indicates it was manufactured in the U.S., evidence which seems to exonerate Russia. In Syria, Clark tracks down Ghazi, one of the men who found the bomb, now dying of radiation exposure. He tells Clark that he sold the bomb to Olson, who lives in Damascus. Ryan's colleagues at Langley infiltrate Olson's computer and download files that implicate Dressler as the person who bought the plutonium and who is behind the nuclear attack.
Ryan is able to reach the National Military Command Center in The Pentagon and get a message to Nemerov, saying that he knows that Russia was not behind the attack, while also asking Nemerov to unilaterally stand down his forces as a show of good faith. Nemerov agrees to do so as Fowler follows suit. The attack's perpetrators, including Olson and Dressler, are assassinated. Fowler and Nemerov announce new measures to counter nuclear proliferation in joint speeches at the White House, as Ryan and his fiancée Dr. Catherine Muller listen in. Spinnaker, who is revealed to be Nemerov's Senior Advisor Grushkov, gives Catherine a modest gift for their engagement.
Cast
- Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan
- Morgan Freeman as DCI William Cabot
- James Cromwell as US President Fowler
- Liev Schreiber as John Clark
- Bridget Moynahan as Dr. Cathy Muller
- Alan Bates as Richard Dressler
- Ciarán Hinds as Russian President Nemerov
- Philip Baker Hall as Defense Secretary Becker
- Ron Rifkin as Secretary of State Owens
- Bruce McGill as National Security Advisor Revell
- Colm Feore as Olson
- Josef Sommer as Senator Jessup
- Ken Jenkins as Admiral Pollack
- Michael Byrne as Anatoli Grushkov
- John Beasley as General Lasseter
- Jamie Harrold as Dillon
Production
Development
In 1991, Paramount Pictures negotiated with Tom Clancy for the rights to adapt The Sum of All Fears, but the talks stalled after he became reluctant to concede film rights to further works due to his dissatisfaction with the adaptation of Patriot Games.[3] Clancy ultimately agreed after he reached a large cash settlement with the studio president Brandon Tartikoff. However, producer Mace Neufeld was not enthusiastic to adapt the book after the release of Clear and Present Danger in 1994 due to its similarities with the story of Black Sunday and concerns over depicting controversial subjects such as terrorism and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[4] A year was spent developing Tom Clancy's The Cardinal of the Kremlin before the material was deemed too difficult to adapt.[5] An adaptation of Debt of Honor or a new screenplay unrelated to any of Clancy's books was also considered.[4]
In October 1999, Harrison Ford announced that the next Jack Ryan novel being scripted into a film would indeed be The Sum of All Fears and that "hopefully we'll get that to a place where we can make a movie."[6] During this time, writer Akiva Goldsman wrote multiple drafts of the script.[7] However, on June 8, 2000, it was announced that Ford had dropped out of the film after he and director Phillip Noyce were unable to work out script problems.[8] It was later announced that Ben Affleck would take on the role in a $10 million deal that would see the series rebooted with Jack Ryan portrayed at an earlier stage in life. "The day I received the offer to play Jack Ryan, I was filming a Pearl Harbor scene with Alec Baldwin. He was very sweet and said I should do it," said Affleck. "I wouldn't have done the movie without talking to Harrison Ford first. He gave me his blessing. That's what I needed to hear."[9] Months after Affleck became attached to the project, director Phil Alden Robinson was brought on to lead it.[10]
While the basic plot is the same in the movie as in the book, there were significant changes. Noting these substantial changes, in the
On the "making-of" DVD extra, director Alden Robinson said that the change was purely for elements relating to the plot, because Arab terrorists would not be able to plausibly accomplish all that was necessary for the story to work. In addition, the terrorists in the book received significant aid from elements in
Screenwriter Dan Pyne claimed that the decision to not use Arab terrorists was "possibly because that has become a cliché. At the time that I started writing The Sum of All Fears, Jörg Haider was just starting to come into play in Austria. And simultaneous with that, I think, there was some neo-nationalist activity in Holland, and there was stuff going on in Spain and in Italy. So it seemed like a logical and lasting idea that would be universal."[13] It has also been noted that a larger percent of profits stems from international audiences, and US filmmakers work to avoid alienating large segments of this customer base.[13]
Filming
Principal photography for The Sum of All Fears began on February 12, 2001, in Montreal, Quebec.[14] A majority of the film was shot in Montreal, including the sequences at the football game that were shot in the city's Olympic Stadium.[15] Additional filming was done at the Diefenbunker in Ottawa, Ontario.[16] Production finished in June 2001.[5] The interior scene of the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis was filmed on a set used in the television series JAG.[17]
Music
The musical score to The Sum of All Fears is composed by Jerry Goldsmith. A soundtrack album was released on June 4, 2002, by Elektra Records.[18] In addition to Goldsmith's score, the soundtrack also includes source music such as "If We Get Through This" by Tabitha Fair and "Nessun dorma" by Giacomo Puccini. There are also two tracks from the album ("If We Could Remember" and "The Mission") that are vocal interpretations of Goldsmith's primary theme co-written by singer-songwriter Paul Williams.[19] On March 12, 2014, an expanded edition was released by La-La Land Records.[20]
The Sum of All Fears (Music from the Motion Picture) | ||||
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Jack Ryan soundtrack chronology | ||||
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No. | Title | Length |
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1. | "If We Could Remember" | 3:30 |
2. | "The Mission" | 5:57 |
3. | "The Bomb" | 2:55 |
4. | "That Went Well" | 2:45 |
5. | "Clear the Stadium" | 1:33 |
6. | "If We Get Through This" | 3:36 |
7. | "The Deal" | 2:34 |
8. | "Changes" | 2:27 |
9. | "Snap Count" | 2:12 |
10. | "His Name Is Olson" | 1:51 |
11. | "Nessun Dorma from Turandot" | 2:58 |
12. | "Deserted Lab" | 1:52 |
13. | "Real Time" | 2:51 |
14. | "How Close?" | 6:05 |
15. | "The Same Air" | 2:01 |
16. | "If We Could Remember (Reprise)" | 3:34 |
Total length: | 49:30 |
No. | Title | Length |
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1. | "The Mission" | 5:56 |
2. | "Do It!/I'll Go/The Bomb" | 4:35 |
3. | "14 Months/The Deal" | 4:05 |
4. | "Thanks a Lot/That Went Well" | 3:22 |
5. | "The Shipment/Moscow Time" | 1:16 |
6. | "Nice Going/The Docks" | 3:36 |
7. | "Mrs. Spassky/The Lab" | 2:10 |
8. | "The Reservoir/Night Landing/Deserted Lab" | 3:34 |
9. | "Shoot Him/Changes" | 3:16 |
10. | "Clear the Stadium (film version)/Not the Russians/Man Your Aircraft" | 4:24 |
11. | "Further Aggressions/State of War" | 2:53 |
12. | "Supplies/To the Docks" | 2:02 |
13. | "Real Time" | 2:50 |
14. | "Cabot Is Dead/His Name Is Olson" | 2:50 |
15. | "Snap Count" | 2:11 |
16. | "Maximum Readiness/Get a Doctor" | 1:57 |
17. | "How Close?" | 6:08 |
18. | "The Same Air" | 3:16 |
19. | "If We Could Remember" | 3:36 |
20. | " Star-Spangled Banner" | 1:55 |
21. | "Nessun Dorma from Turandot" | 2:57 |
22. | "The Mission (synth choir)" | 4:31 |
23. | "Clear the Stadium (album version)" | 1:31 |
24. | "His Name Is Olson (alt. with synth choir)" | 1:50 |
25. | "Theme from The Sum of All Fears (synth demo)" | 2:13 |
Total length: | 78:48 |
Release
While the film was speculated to be released in late 2001, The Sum of All Fears was theatrically released on May 31, 2002. Many media outlets characterized this apparent change in release date to be a delay due to the September 11 attacks. Addressing the release date, director Phil Alden Robinson said, "When I came on board in August of 2000, they said, 'This is a Summer-of-2002 picture.'"[10] As the first film released since September 11 to deal so vividly with terrorism, critics believed it to be too alarming to be released nine months after the attacks.[21][22]
Home media
The Sum of All Fears was released on DVD and VHS on October 29, 2002.[23]
Reception
Critical response
The Sum of All Fears received mixed reviews.
Peter Travers criticized Affleck's performance, saying it "merely creates an outline for a role he still needs to grow into, a role that Harrison Ford effortlessly filled with authority."[26] Richard Roeper felt the film "is almost impossible to follow – and there's something cringe-inducing about seeing an American football stadium nuked as pop entertainment." Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune called it "an implausible apocalypse without depth or resonance",[27] while Peter Rainer of New York magazine felt the "movie has been upstaged by the sum of our fears."[28]
"There are some frightening special effects in the movie, which I will not describe, because their unexpected appearance has such an effect."
—Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times[29]
A few positive reviews came from
In Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy, author Matthew Alford observed that the American political characters in the film act benevolently, declaring "When the President and his advisers do apply force it is with heavy hearts and purely as a way of demonstrating 'deterrence' in the hope that this will encourage the Russians to back down. They never apply excessive violence and are ultimately successful — with Ryan’s help — in avoiding nuclear warfare." Furthermore, he argued that "the film celebrates and makes light of the enormous covert powers of a globally operating US national security state and its allies."[33]
Ed Gonzalez of Slant magazine took issue with the film's violent content, especially as it was released not long after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.[34]
Box office
The Sum of All Fears made $31.1 million during its opening weekend, ranking in first place at the box office, beating Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.[35] According to Box Office Mojo, the film made U.S. $118,907,036 and $75,014,336 in foreign totals, easily recovering its $68 million production costs.[2]
Awards
The film won a Visual Effects Society Award for "Best Supporting Visual Effects in a Motion Picture." The recipients were Glenn Neufeld, Derek Spears, Dan Malvin, and Al DiSarro.[36]
See also
- 2002 in film
- The Sum of All Fears (video game)
- National Response Scenario Number One
- The Peacemaker (1997 film), a movie with similar themes.
References
- ^ "The Sum of All Fears (12)". British Board of Film Classification. May 31, 2002. Retrieved September 4, 2016.
- ^ a b The Sum of All Fears, Box Office Mojo.
- ^ "Why Tom Clancy's Name Isn't on the Patriot Games Poster". Den of Geek. June 5, 2019. Retrieved March 16, 2020.
- ^ a b "Harrison Ford takes on Tom Clancy...again". EW.com. Retrieved March 17, 2020.
- ^ a b Neumer, Chris. "Mace Neufeld Interview". Stumped Magazine. Retrieved September 5, 2013.
- Toledo Blade. Retrieved September 4, 2013.
- ^ "Akiva Goldsman talks about THE SUM OF ALL FEARS..." Video Trader. Ain't It Cool News. February 1, 2000. Retrieved September 5, 2013.
- ^ "Ford Won't Give in to Sum of All Fears". IGN. June 8, 2000. Retrieved September 4, 2013.
- ^ Hobson, Louis B. (May 21, 2001). "Affleck attack". Jam!. Archived from the original on September 4, 2013. Retrieved September 4, 2013.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ a b Lybarger, Dan (May 31, 2002). "The Sum of All Fears: A Conversation with Phil Alden Robinson". Nitrate Online Feature. Retrieved September 5, 2013.
- ^ The Sum of All Fears – IGN, October 18, 2002, retrieved March 16, 2020
- ^ Armstrong, Mark (January 26, 2001). "Wolf Howls As NBC Yanks "Law & Order" Episode". E! News. Retrieved September 4, 2013.
- ^ a b producer: Lauren F. Cardillo (2003). "Casting Calls". Running Down Dreams Productions & The Discovery Times Channel.
- The Free Library. March 7, 2001. Archived from the originalon December 1, 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2013.
- ^ "Sum of All Fears – Production Notes". Contactmusic.com. Retrieved September 5, 2013.
- ^ Emma Jones (June 4, 2012). "On-location vacations: Movies shot in Canada". MSN. Archived from the original on January 15, 2014. Retrieved June 16, 2012.
- ^ Blu-ray commentary with Phil Alden Robinson and John Lindley
- ^ "The Sum of All Fears [Music from the Motion Picture]". AllMusic. Retrieved September 5, 2013.
- ^ "Filmtracks: The Sum of All Fears (Jerry Goldsmith)". Filmtracks.com. February 15, 2009. Retrieved September 5, 2013.
- ^ "The Sum of All Fears album page". Archived from the original on September 22, 2017. Retrieved September 22, 2017.
- ^ Brassfield, Mike (June 1, 2002). "'Sum of All Fears' tests our post-9/11 threshold for plots". St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved September 4, 2013.
- Fox News Channel. Retrieved September 4, 2013.
- ^ Hettrick, Scott (August 25, 2002). "Col TriStar adds trio of fall vid releases". Variety. Retrieved April 8, 2023.
- ^ "The Sum Of All Fears". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
- ^ "The Sum of All Fears". Metacritic. Retrieved January 17, 2014.
- ^ "The Sum of All Fears". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on December 4, 2007. Retrieved May 7, 2010.
- ^ "529 Reviews by Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune". Archived from the original on April 27, 2012. Retrieved May 26, 2013.
- ^ Peter Rainer. "Review of Sum of all fears". NY Magazine (NYMag). Retrieved May 26, 2013.
- ^ a b Ebert, Roger (May 31, 2002). "The Sum of All Fears". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on May 20, 2017. Retrieved April 20, 2020.
- ^ Lana K. Wilson-Combs, "wHEW! Freeman won't give up acting anytime soon", The Argus (May 31, 2002).
- ^ "'The Sum of All Fears': Politically correct with Jack Ryan". The Post-Star. Retrieved December 26, 2020.
- ^ "No. 101: "The Sum of All Fears" Falls Victim to Political Correctness". Carolina Journal. Archived from the original on May 8, 2021. Retrieved December 26, 2020.
- ^ Alford, Reel Power, p 91.
- ^ Gonzalez, Ed (May 22, 2002). "Review: The Sum of All Fears". Slant Magazine. Archived from the original on July 26, 2020. Retrieved July 26, 2020.
- ^ "The Sum Of All Fears takes US box office by storm".
- ^ "1st Annual VES Awards". visual effects society.