Sahara (2005 film)

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Sahara
Theatrical release poster
Directed byBreck Eisner
Screenplay byJames V. Hart
Thomas Dean Donnelly
Joshua Oppenheimer
John C. Richards
Produced byStephanie Austin
Howard Baldwin
Karen Baldwin
Mace Neufeld
StarringMatthew McConaughey
Steve Zahn
Penélope Cruz
Lambert Wilson
Glynn Turman
Delroy Lindo
William H. Macy
CinematographySeamus McGarvey
Edited byAndrew MacRitchie
Music byClint Mansell
Production
companies
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release dates
  • April 4, 2005 (2005-04-04) (premiere)
  • April 8, 2005 (2005-04-08) (wide)
Running time
124 minutes[1]
CountriesUnited Kingdom
Spain
Germany
United States
LanguagesEnglish
French
Arabic
Budget$160 million[2]
Box office$119.3 million[1]

Sahara is a 2005 action-comedy adventure film directed by Breck Eisner that is based on the best-selling book of the same name by Clive Cussler. It stars Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn and Penélope Cruz and is an international co-production between the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany and the United States.

Sahara was a box office bomb earning just $119 million worldwide, against a budget of $160 million.

Plot

In 1865, the ironclad CSS Texas carried the last of the Confederacy's treasury out of Richmond, Virginia, as Captain Mason Tombs ran a Union blockade.

In present day, in Mali, a civil war is being fought between dictator General Kazim and Tuareg people. World Health Organization doctors Eva Rojas and Frank Hopper investigate a disease spreading across Mali. Assassins accompanied by a corrupt Tuareg named Zakara attempt to murder Eva, but she is rescued by Dirk Pitt, who is from the National Underwater and Marine Agency and was diving nearby.

Dirk's contact in Nigeria sells him a gold Confederate States of America coin found in the Niger River. Believing this to be a clue to the long-lost Texas, Dirk borrows his boss Sandecker's yacht to search for the Texas. Accompanying Dirk are his partner Al Giordino and Rudi Gunn from NUMA. They give Eva and Hopper a ride, so that they can continue their investigation of the disease.

Businessman Yves Massarde and dictator General Kazim try to stop the doctors from discovering the source of the disease. Kazim sends men to attack the yacht. Dirk, Al and Rudi survive the attack, but the yacht is destroyed and Eva and Hopper are captured. Rudi tries to leave the country to get help while Dirk and Al go to rescue the doctors.

After rescuing Eva, they try to leave Mali, but are captured by the Tuareg. The Tuareg leader, Modibo, shows Eva his people dying from the same disease she was investigating. After analyzing the water sample, Eva finds out that the water is contaminated with toxins, and there is no treatment available for the sick people. Al stumbles into a cave with a painting showing the ironclad Texas. Dirk believes that the Texas became stranded when the river dried up after a storm and that the same river that carried the ship now runs underground.

They follow the dry river bed and work their way to the border. On the way, they stumble upon a solar detoxification plant owned by Massarde, which is the source of the contamination. They discover that the contamination is being carried to the ocean and, if not stopped in time, will kill everything in it. In addition, they cannot get their government to intervene during a civil war in a sovereign country. Massarde captures the group, keeps Eva and sends Dirk and Al to Kazim. The duo escape but get stranded in the middle of the desert. They find the wreck of a plane and rebuild it into a land yacht, which they use to reach civilization.

Dirk and Al enlist Modibo's aid to return to the plant. To cover up the existence of the plant, Massarde decides to destroy it with explosives. Fearing the plant's destruction would make it impossible to stop the contamination, Al goes to remove the explosives while Dirk tries to stop Massarde. Dirk fights and kills Zakara after a fierce battle. He rescues Eva, but Massarde escapes to his helicopter. Al successfully neutralizes the explosive, much to Massarde's anger.

The three leave the plant on an Avions Voisin C-28, but Kazim pursues them in a helicopter gunship. A series of explosions along the dry river bed reveals the wreckage of the Texas. The trio board the ship, and use its cannons to destroy Kazim's gunship. Modibo arrives with Tuareg reinforcements and forces Kazim's army to surrender, ending the civil war.

The plant is shut down, stopping the source of toxic waste, while the rest is dealt with. Sandecker agrees to do covert work for the government, who in exchange would funds NUMA. The Texas gold, which technically belong to the Confederate States of America, is left with Modibo's people. It is heavily implied that Massarde is poisoned by an undercover US agent. Dirk and Eva start a relationship.

Cast

Promotion

To promote the film, actor Matthew McConaughey drove his own Airstream trailer (painted with a large Sahara movie poster on each side) across America, stopping at military bases and many events, such as the Daytona 500 (to Grand Marshal the race), premiering the movie to fans, signing autographs, and doing interviews at each stop. The trip's highlights were shown on an E! channel special to coincide with the film's release. McConaughey also kept a running blog of his trip on MTV's entertainment website. Both MTV and the film's distributor, Paramount Pictures, are owned by Viacom.

According to McConaughey, this film was intended to be the first in a franchise based on Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels (much like the James Bond one), but the poor box-office performance has stalled any plans for a sequel.

Legal problems

In February 2005, Cussler took legal action against Philip Anschutz, the producer, for failing to consult him on the script.[3]

Cussler sued the film's makers for breach of contract and producer Anschutz counter-sued Cussler for "alleged blackmail and sabotage attempts against the film prior to its 2005 release."[citation needed] Cussler claimed that his initial brief of "absolute control"[citation needed] over the book's adaptation to the big screen was compromised and this contributed to it becoming a box office failure. In a statement to a Los Angeles court, Cussler said, "They deceived me right from the beginning. They kept lying to me... and I just got fed up with it."[3] Anschutz countered that Cussler's behavior played a big role in the film's financial woes. Anschutz's lawyer said, "It is the height of arrogance for Cussler to take $10 million to make a movie and then torpedo the franchise."[3]

Anschutz prevailed. On May 15, 2007, the jury awarded him $5 million, leaving it to the judge to separately determine whether or not Anschutz should have to pay $8.5 million to Cussler for rights to a second book. In a decision on January 8, 2008, Judge John Shook denied Cussler's claim for the $8.5 million.

On March 10, 2009, Judge John P. Shook ordered Clive Cussler to pay $13.9 million in legal fees to the production company.[4]

A March 2010 decision by the California Court of Appeals has since overturned the earlier awardings of both the $5 million in damages and nearly $14 million in legal fees to Anschutz.[5]

Despite the March appellate court ruling in the long-running litigation between author Clive Cussler and Philip Anschutz's Crusader Entertainment, Cussler attempted to reignite the dispute in July 2010. He filed a new lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court claiming that the appeals court opened a window for him to recover $8.5 million owed on a contract with Crusader. Cussler is asking a judge to declare that his claim is valid and he is entitled to the money.

"They're trying to pretend this wasn't already litigated", Crusader attorney Marvin Putnam replied. "Cussler has never been able to accept the fact that he lost this case. He didn't accept the jury verdict, then for a year they tried to get the trial court judge to say the jury determined (Cussler was) entitled to $8.5 million and the court said absolutely not. They then sought an appeal and it didn't work. Then they appealed to the California Supreme Court and they didn't take the case. So, despite having had multiple courts say no, they are trying all over again."[6]

Reception

Critical response

Sahara received mixed reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 39% based on reviews from 171 critics, with the consensus: "A mindless adventure flick with a preposterous plot."[7] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 41 based on 33 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[8]

Box office

The film opened at number one in the US box office, taking $18 million on its first weekend and ultimately grossed $69 million. It earned a further $50 million overseas, for a worldwide total of $119 million.[1]

Due to its huge costs—including a $160 million production budget and $61 million in distribution expenses—its box-office take amounted to barely half of its expenses.[2] The film lost approximately $105 million according to a financial executive assigned to the movie;[9] however, Hollywood accounting methods assign losses at $78.3 million, taking into account projected revenue.[2] According to Hollywood accounting, the film has a projected revenue of $202.9 million against expenses of $281.2 million.[2]

The Los Angeles Times presented an extensive special report on April 15, 2007, dissecting the budget of Sahara as an example of how Hollywood movies can cost so much to produce and fail. Many of the often closely held documents had become public domain after a lawsuit involving the film. Among some of the items in the budget were bribes to the Moroccan government, some of which may have been legally questionable under American law.[2][10]

In 2014, the Los Angeles Times listed the film as one of the most expensive flops of all time.[11]

Awards

Award Category Recipient(s) Result
BMI Film & TV Awards Film Music Award Clint Mansell Won[12]
Irish Film & Television Awards Best Cinematography Award Seamus McGarvey Won[13]
Teen Choice Awards Choice Movie Actor: Action/Thriller Matthew McConaughey Nominated[14]
Choice Movie Actress: Action/Thriller Penélope Cruz Nominated[14]
Choice Movie: Liplock Matthew McConaughey and Penélope Cruz Nominated[15]

References

  1. ^ a b c "Sahara (2005)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved August 9, 2013.
  2. ^ a b c d e Bunting, Glenn (15 April 2007). "$78 million of red ink?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 31 December 2014.
  3. ^ a b c Bunting, Glenn F. (2006-12-08). "Don't give him rewrite". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2015-06-21.
  4. ^ "Clive Cussler loses another Sahara battle, ordered to pay $13.9M". CBC News. March 10, 2009.
  5. ^ "Judgement against author Cussler overturned in Anschutz/'Sahara' dispute." Denver Business Journal. 4 March 2010. http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2010/03/01/daily53.html
  6. ^ Belloni, Matt (December 21, 2014). "More 'Sahara' litigation! Cussler sues Anschutz all over again!". The Hollywood Reporter. Los Angeles, CA, USA. Retrieved March 26, 2015.
  7. ^ "Sahara". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved August 9, 2013.
  8. ^ "Sahara". Metacritic. Retrieved August 9, 2013.
  9. ^ Glenn F. Bunting, Jurors hear tales of studio maneuvering, Los Angeles Times, March 5, 2007
  10. ^ Sahara: Budget melts in the desert, Los Angeles Times, April 15, 2007. Archived April 21, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ Eller, Claudia,"The costliest box office flops of all time", Los Angeles Times (January 15, 2014)
  12. ^ "BMI Film & Television Awards Salute Composers of Top Movie, TV, Cable Music". BMI.com. May 17, 2006. Retrieved January 11, 2013.
  13. ^ "WINNERS OF THE 3RD ANNUAL IRISH FILM & TELEVISION AWARDS". Irish & Film Television Academy. Retrieved January 11, 2013.
  14. ^ a b "FOX Announces Nominees for "The 2005 Teen Choice Awards"". The FutonCritic.com. June 1, 2005. Retrieved January 11, 2013.
  15. ^ "Story Notes for Sahara". AMC Blog. AMC Networks. Retrieved January 11, 2013.

External links

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