Sucker Punch (film)

Sucker Punch
Baby Doll Character poster
Directed by	Zack Snyder
Produced by	Deborah Snyder Zack Snyder
Screenplay by	Zack Snyder Steve Shibuya
Story by	Zack Snyder
Starring	Emily Browning Abbie Cornish Jena Malone Vanessa Hudgens Jamie Chung Oscar Isaac Carla Gugino Jon Hamm Scott Glenn
Music by	Tyler Bates Marius de Vries
Cinematography	Larry Fong
Editing by	William Hoy
Studio	Legendary Pictures Cruel and Unusual Films
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s)	March 25, 2011 (2011-03-25)
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$85 million[1]

Sucker Punch is an upcoming American action-fantasy film written by Steve Shibuya and Zack Snyder, and directed by Snyder.^[2][3] Sucker Punch features an ensemble female cast^[4] that includes Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens and Jamie Chung. The film follows a young girl in the 1950s about to be lobotomized as she attempts to escape an asylum with her inmate friends.

Development began in March 2007. The script, which was penned by Snyder and Shibuya, was finalized in five years and was actually planned to be made first before Watchmen. For Sucker Punch, Snyder gathered most of the Vancouver-based production team who worked on Watchmen.^[5] Pre-production took place in Los Angeles in June 2009, then moved to Vancouver in July. Principal photography began in September 2009 and concluded in January 2010; filming took place in Vancouver.

Sucker Punch is scheduled to be released in both conventional and IMAX theatres on March 25, 2011.^[6] It was earlier said to be released in October 8, 2010, but it was pushed back instead.^[7] Snyder is currently mapping out the Blu-ray interactivity for the film in preparation for the film's home media release.^[8]

Contents [hide] 1 Premise 2 Cast 3 Production 3.1 Development 3.2 Casting 3.3 Training 3.4 Music 3.5 Production and design 4 Marketing 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Premise

Snyder has described the film as "Alice in Wonderland with machine guns", including dragons, B-52 bombers and brothels. Snyder's wife and producing partner Deborah Snyder concludes, "in the end, it's about this girl's survival and what she needs to do to be able to cope."^[9] In November 2010, Warner Bros released the official synopsis for the film:

“Sucker Punch” is an epic action fantasy that takes us into the vivid imagination of a young girl whose dream world provides the ultimate escape from her darker reality.  Unrestrained by the boundaries of time and place, she is free to go where her mind takes her, and her incredible adventures blur the lines between what’s real and what is imaginary.

She has been locked away against her will at Lennox House for the Mentally Insane (in Brattleboro, Vermont), but Baby-Doll (Emily Browning) has not lost her will to survive.  Determined to fight for her freedom, she urges four other young girls—the outspoken Rocket (Jena Malone), the street-smart Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), the fiercely loyal Amber (Jamie Chung) and the reluctant Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish)—to band together and try to escape their terrible fate at the hands of their captors, Blue (Oscar Isaac), Madam Gorski (Carla Gugino) and the High Roller (Jon Hamm).

Led by Baby-Doll, the girls engage in fantastical warfare against everything from samurais to serpents, with a virtual arsenal at their disposal.  Together, they must decide what they are willing to sacrifice in order to stay alive.  But with the help of Wiseman (Scott Glenn), their unbelievable journey—if they succeed—will set them free.

[edit] Cast

• Emily Browning as Baby Doll,^[10] the film's primary protagonist.
• Abbie Cornish as Sweet Pea,^[11] Rocket's older sister.
• Jena Malone as Rocket,^[12] Sweet Pea's sister.^[13]
• Vanessa Hudgens as Blondie,^{[14][15][16][17]} the odd inmate friend of Baby Doll's.
• Jamie Chung as Amber,^[18] the first friend to come on board Baby Doll's plan.
• Carla Gugino as Madam Gorski,^[19][20] a nurse at the asylum and choreographer in the brothel.
• Jon Hamm as High Roller,^[21][22] a client at the imaginary brothel that is coming to take Baby-Doll's virginity in five days.
• Scott Glenn as The Wiseman,^[23][24] a martial arts trainer for the girls and mentor.
• Oscar Isaac as Blue,^[25] the antagonist of the story who plans to lobotomize Baby Doll in five days.
• Ryan Robbins as General Thomas,^[26] a soldier that accompanies the girls.
• Gerard Plunkett as The Stepfather / Father O'Rourke, Baby Doll's evil stepfather.
• Jonathan Perez as Magician, Blue's young nephew who acts as an advocate for Baby Doll and the girls.
• Vicky Lambert as The Countess
• Danny Bristol as little Tommy Soldier
• Michael Jai White^[27]

[edit] Production

[edit] Development

Sucker Punch first gained attention in March 2007. Snyder put the project aside to work on Watchmen first.^[29][30] The film is co-written with Steve Shibuya, who is the author of the original score that the story is based on.^[31][32] Snyder will also direct and produce with his wife and producing partner, Deborah Snyder, through their Cruel and Unusual Films banner. Wesley Coller is executive producing.^[33]

Warner Bros. announced in early 2009 that they will distribute Sucker Punch due to the success of Snyder's previous film, Watchmen. "They've never said, 'Ahh, it could have been shorter,' or, 'Too bad it's so R-ish.' And that's really cool. I'm challenging them again with Sucker Punch."^[31][34][35] In early interviews, Snyder stated that he will make Sucker Punch! an R-rated film, but in a recent interview he then stated that he is aiming for it to be rated a PG-13.^[36]

When Snyder was in San Diego hosting a Blu-ray live screening of Watchmen for Comic-Con, he handed out t-shirts for Sucker Punch featuring the first art for the film. The art was designed by Alex Pardee of Snafu Comics.^[37] Pre-production began in June 2009 in Canada. Snyder's pre-production work includes continuing to draw and look at concept art. He also revealed that he has already begun shooting fantasy sequences. Snyder also added that he enjoys the freedom of filming his own original script.^[38] Photographer Clay Enos was hired to take still pictures on set. Enos will take portraits of the main girls, but, he's "also hoping to make something a little sexier, a little edgier, a little more eclectic."^[39]

[edit] Casting

Before casting started in March 2009,^[40] Snyder revealed his ideal cast for the feature film.^[41] Snyder has decided to go with an all-female cast with this film saying that "I already did the all-male cast with 300, so I’m doing the opposite end of the spectrum", contradicting the "no female leads" stance Warner Bros. took in 2007.^[42][43][44]

Snyder had tapped Amanda Seyfried first for the lead role, "Baby Doll."^[40] "We'll see. We're trying to, so...She's great. It would be great if it worked out", Snyder said when asked if Seyfried was up for the role.^[1][45][46] Snyder had also offered roles to Abbie Cornish, Evan Rachel Wood, Emma Stone, and Vanessa Hudgens.^[47] Unfortunately, despite Snyder's aim to have her play the role of "Baby Doll", the institutionalized girl, the actress turned it down due to conflicting schedules between the film and her HBO series Big Love.^[48] Days later, Emily Browning agreed to replace Seyfried in the role. During the confirmation of her involvement, Hudgens, Wood, Cornish and Stone were all still in talks.^[10]

Wood dropped out of the project due to scheduling conflicts with her recurring role in HBO's True Blood and her stage production of Spider-Man.^[49] She was later replaced by Jena Malone for the role of "Rocket".^[50] Jamie Chung signed up for the role of "Amber" which Stone was supposedly to portray.^[12][18] Malone, Browning and Chung will be joining Cornish and Hudgens, who have all agreed to do the film.^[51] Even with the casting changes, the project is still considered to be one of Hollywood's most intriguing.^[52] Carla Gugino was cast as "Madam Gorski", a nurse in the asylum. She previously worked with Snyder on Watchmen.^[53] Jon Hamm was also confirmed to be playing "High Roller", the man who is running the brothel, in late August 2009.

Snyder confirms Scott Glenn has agreed to be involved in the project. He'll be portraying "The Wiseman".^[23] Oscar Isaac has been tapped in late August 2009.^[25][54][55] Hudgens describes her role as the "tough one."^[56][57] "I'm so stoked about it", she said. "I kept telling everyone, 'I want to do an action film.' But they were like, 'Maybe in a few years.' So I'm like, 'Ha, in your face. I am doing one now!'"^[58] Each of the five girls has two characters—one is in the real world and the other one in the fever dreams.^[59]

[edit] Training

Prior to filming, the cast had trainings and fight evaluations. Training lasted for 12 weeks. It started June 2009 in Los Angeles and continued through filming. The main girls in the film were told to deadlift up to 210 pounds (95 kg) for their roles. Damon Caro, the stunt coordinator from 300 and Watchmen, Snyder's previous films was hired for the stunts, training and fight choreography in the movie.^[59][60] The other cast members started training without Hudgens while she was filming other films, including Beastly.^[61] Snyder tells that when the girls are fighting, "[like] they're on their way to kill a baby dragon, they've killed all of these orc-like creatures and they're entering a door [and] it's this classic, real Navy SEAL style room clearing. They have machine guns but they're fighting mythic creatures, impossible creatures. The hand to hand stuff is all brutal, because Damon [Caro] did all the [fights] in Bourne and it has that vibe to it."^[62] In the characters' imaginations, Snyder remarks that "they can do anything."^[63]

Abbie Cornish reveals that the rest of them were training, prior to filming, six hours a day, five days a week, and were oriented with martial fighting, swords and choreography.^[11] Damon Caro, known for choreographing stunts from films like 300 and the Bourne film series, worked with Snyder again for Sucker Punch as he has previously worked on all of Snyder's past films.^[64][65][66]

[edit] Music

Music will play an integral role in the movie. "In the story, music is the thing that launches them into these fantasy worlds", Snyder explains.^[42] Music becomes the backbone of the film. They used actual songs for Sucker Punch that would create suitable moods. It plays an important factor in the film and will be used as it was in Moulin Rouge!, as Snyder says.^[31] Dance choreography was spearheaded by Paul Becker, with Jeff Dimitriou as associate. Carla Gugino, who plays a "madam" in the brothel, had to take singing lessons for scenes wherein she plays a choreographer madam in the brothel.^[19] The brothel scenario will have "sexy" songs, as Jamie Chung describes, and dance fantasy scenes.^[67] As of September 2009, Chung remarked that they already began recording tracks for Sucker Punch.^[65] Oscar Isaac reveals that the songs used in the film aren't going to be original but they are going to be new arrangements of existing music.^[68]

The songs "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane and "Love Is the Drug" by Roxy Music will feature in the movie. They'll be sung by the cast or be used in another way. On the official "Sucker Punch" website, it is stated that Tyler Bates (who composed all of Snyder's previous live-action films) and Marius de Vries (who composed the score for the film Moulin Rouge!) are scoring Sucker Punch. The official trailers contains samples from the songs "Prologue" by Immediate Music, "Crablouse", from the album Voodoo-U by Belgian band Lords of Acid, "When the Levee Breaks" by Led Zeppelin, "And Your World Will Burn" by Cliff Lin, and "Panic Switch," by the Silversun Pickups.

[edit] Production and design

With an $85 million budget,^[1] production took place in September 2009 and was expected to last until January 2010 in Vancouver and Toronto.^[4][69] Originally, production would have started on June 2009, but it was postponed.^[70] Production concluded on January 22, 2010.^[71] Snyder confirms that prior to the set production date, he already shot some fantasy sequences for Sucker Punch.^[38] Snyder shares that the film is a "stylized motion picture about action and sort of landscapes of the imagination and things of that nature." Snyder has been decided on the film's title for some time and says it concerns a pop-culture reference. "It's about hopefully what the movie feels like when you watch it, more than a specific 'Oh, it's a story of this person.' It's all stylized."^[72]

The film includes an imaginary brothel that the five girls enter in the alternate reality, where singing and dancing take place. Hudgens was featured in a lush dancing scene and does a techno-belly dance musical number in the cavernous night club set while the character of Browning is tangling with a mutant German officer.^[5] It also includes dragons, aliens and a scenario of World War I due to the time setting of the film. Snyder expressed his interest in the film's content:

On the other hand, though it's fetishistic and personal, I like to think that my fetishes aren't that obscure. Who doesn't want to see girls running down the trenches of World War One wreaking havoc? I'd always had an interest in those worlds — comic books, fantasy art, animated films. I'd like to see this, that's how I approach everything, and then keep pushing it from there.^[5]

Rick Carter is production designer^[73] while the visual effects of the film were done by Animal Logic with 75 visual effects specialists, and the Moving Picture Company (MPC) who were awarded over 120 shots.^[74] Sucker Punch operates on three levels—a reality, then a sub-reality where the psych ward world shifts into a strange high-roller's brothel. The final level is made up of a dream world where more action sequences that are removed from time and space take place.^[11] Warner Bros. announced earlier that Sucker Punch will be released in 3D format.^[75] Zack Snyder describes the conversion into 3D as a completely different process.^[76] However, it was recently announced that the film will not be presented in 3D.

Snyder wanted to design the movie to where there's no limits on him at all, considering that he had co-written the script and this is his first original film not based on any earlier references, and says it is the most difficult part. He adds that he still wants it to "be a cool story and not just like a video game where you’re just loose and going nuts."^[77] Sucker Punch is into a mix of real and digital, with the night club built next door to the First World War trenches, a castle's partial facade — dragons to be added later — and the grim asylum hallways.^[5]

[edit] Marketing

Sucker Punch participated in the Comic-Con 2010 and showed the first footage of the film, featuring the songs "Prologue" by Immediate Music and " The Crablouse" by Lords of Acid. The trailer was released on Tuesday July 27 on Apple Trailers. The official trailer was released on Wednesday November 3 and was attached to Due Date.^[76]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official website
• Sucker Punch at the Internet Movie Database
• Sucker Punch at Box Office Mojo
• Sucker Punch at Allmovie

[hide] v • d • e Films directed by Zack Snyder     Dawn of the Dead (2004) · 300 (2007) · Watchmen (2009) · Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010) · Sucker Punch (2011) · The Man of Steel (TBA)