65 (film)

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

65
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Scott Beck Bryan Woods
Written by	Scott BeckBryan Woods
Produced by	Sam Raimi Deborah LieblingZainab AziziScott BeckBryan Woods
Starring	Adam Driver Ariana Greenblatt
Cinematography	Salvatore Totino
Edited by	Jane TonesJosh Schaeffer
Music by	Chris Bacon
Production companies	Columbia Pictures Bron CreativeRaimi ProductionsBeck/Woods
Distributed by	Sony Pictures Releasing
Release date	March 10, 2023
Running time	93 minutes^[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$45 million^[2]
Box office	$60.7 million^[3]

65 is a 2023 American science fiction film written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods and starring Adam Driver as an ancient astronaut who crashes on an unknown planet with a challenging environment and attempts to help a young girl, played by Ariana Greenblatt, survive. Beck and Woods produced with Sam Raimi, Deborah Liebling, and Zainab Azizi.

Released in the United States by Sony Pictures Releasing under its Columbia Pictures label on March 10, 2023, the film grossed $60 million worldwide on a budget of $45 million, and received mixed reviews from critics.

Plot

Sixty-five million years ago, on the planet Somaris, pilot Mills is convinced by his wife that he should take on a two-year space expedition to earn the money needed to treat their daughter Nevine’s illness. During the journey, his spaceship, the Zoic, is hit by an unexpected mass of asteroids and crash lands on an alien planet, Earth. With his ship irreparably damaged, he discovers that his passengers have been killed while in cryogenically-induced sleep and contemplates suicide until he finds a lone survivor, a young girl named Koa, in her cryogenic pod. He sends a distress beacon for rescue and decides to take care of her. However, they have difficulty communicating due to differing languages and a broken translator.

Mills later discovers a functioning escape shuttle from the Zoic has landed on top of a mountain 15 kilometers away. To encourage Koa to follow him, he lies about her family being on the mountain, when in reality they perished in the crash. The pair quickly realize Earth is inhabited by dangerous and aggressive alien creatures, which are actually dinosaurs. During their journey they rescue a small armored dinosaur stuck in a tar pit, which a pack of theropods then slaughters. Mills plummets from a tree and manages to fight off a pack of Lagosuchus attacking them.

The two bond with each other while spending the night in a cave, with Koa viewing several video messages sent by Nevine. They are soon attacked by a large, quadrupedal, carnivorous archosaur, though Mills enrages it by shooting it in the eye before retreating further with Koa into the cave. They enter a narrow shaft to escape, but after a rockfall separates them, Mills is trapped inside the cave, while Koa falls outside the cave system into the open jungle. She is attacked by a dromaeosaur which she traps in a fallen tree log before slaying it with bombs he had given her earlier; he slaughters an Oviraptor that had attacked him before escaping the cave, but falls into quicksand while searching for her. She arrives and rescues him before they continue up the mountain. However, Mills discovers that a huge asteroid, the same one whose debris his ship crashed into, will strike Earth in less than 12 hours.

When the pair reach the escape shuttle, Koa angrily discovers that Mills lied to her about the death of her family, to which he apologetically reveals to Koa that his daughter Nevine had succumbed to her illness while he was away and promises to protect her. Upon learning a rescue vessel will be arriving soon, the two board the escape shuttle, but the asteroid’s debris causes it to fall down the mountain. A pair of marauding Tyrannosaurus rex harasses the two humans, though Mills successfully kills both of them after Koa distracts them with a projection of Nevine from one of her videos. Suddenly, the giant archosaur, which Mills had partially blinded earlier, appears from the jungle and pursues him. Encountering a large geyser field, he manages to lure it to a geyser, but the geyser’s water and steam only burns half of its face. As the angered archosaur prepares to kill him, Koa stabs it in its remaining eye with a large, sharp dinosaur tooth that she coated in poison berries earlier. The now-blind carnivore stumbles headfirst into a boiling geyser and is killed. The pair escapes just as the asteroids strike Earth, causing the cataclysmic Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. The two relax as the escape pod travels into space towards the rescue vessel.

During the closing titles, the evolution of Earth is shown, at the spot where Mills and Koa left, through an ice age until the present day.

Cast

The film stars Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblatt as Mills and Koa respectively.

Adam Driver as Mills
Ariana Greenblatt as Koa
Chloe Coleman as Nevine
Nika King as Nevine’s mom

Production

In September 2020, Adam Driver signed on to star in the film, to be produced, written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods; Sam Raimi would co-produce with Zainab Azizi and Debbie Liebling.^[4] Later in the year, Ariana Greenblatt and Chloe Coleman joined the cast.^[5]^[6] Greenblatt learned to speak a fictional alien language created for the film.^[7] On a production budget of $45 million,^[2] principal photography began on December 7, 2020.^[8] Filming also occurred in the Kisatchie National Forest in Vernon Parish, Louisiana in January 2021, being halfway into production by January 16,^[9]^[10] and wrapping up on February 21, 2021.^[11] Several locations in Oregon were used for filming, including Meyer’s Creek Beach in Gold Beach, Coos Bay, Whaleshead Beach in Brookings, Agness and Elk Creek Falls.^[12] Additional photography occurred in Ireland, sometime following the film’s first release delay.^[13]

The visual effects were created by Framestore, and Ghost VFX with Chris Harvey serving as a visual effects supervisor.^[14] Scroggins Aviation Mockup & Effects was contracted by Sony to build a spacecraft “Escape Vessel” and other set props for the mother spacecraft in the film.^[15] The delayed release gave time for the visual effects to appear in more satisfactory quality.^[13] In February 2021, it was announced that Danny Elfman was composing the score for the film, having previously collaborated with Raimi on his directed projects.^[16] However, in March 2023, Chris Bacon, a frequent collaborator of Elfman, was revealed to have composed a new score earlier in the year; initially both composers were set to receive credit, but ultimately Bacon received sole credit, with Elfman labeled as a co-composer on select tracks. Additionally, Michael Giacchino served as “score consultant”, while Gad Emile Zeitune is credited with “additional music”.^[17]^[18]

Release

65 was released theatrically in the United States on March 10, 2023, by Sony Pictures Releasing.^[19] The film had previously been scheduled for release, though with longer separation between announcement dates and release dates, for May 13, 2022,^[20] April 29, 2022,^[21] April 14, 2023,^[22] April 28, 2023,^[23] and March 17, 2023.^[24] The film was released digitally on April 7, followed by a Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K UHD release on May 30.^[25] As part of Sony’s 18-month deal with Netflix, the film began streaming on the platform on July 8, 2023.^[26]

Reception

Box office

65 grossed $32.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $28.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $60.7 million.^[3]

In the United States and Canada, 65 was released alongside Scream VI and Champions, and was projected to gross $7–9 million from 3,350 theaters in its opening weekend.^[2]^[27] The film made $4.4 million on its first day, including $1.22 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to slightly over-perform, debuting to $12.3 million and finishing third at the box office.^[28] It made $5.8 million in its second weekend, finishing in third.^[29]

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 36% of 128 critics’ reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.8/10. The website’s consensus reads: “Sodden sci-fi that somehow finds a way to bungle Adam Driver fighting dinosaurs, 65 is closer to zero.”^[30] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 40 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating “mixed or average” reviews.^[31] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “C+” on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it an overall 54% positive score, with 37% saying they would recommend the film.^[28]