Hotchka Movies by the Decade feature #257 :: June 26 to July 2

Quite a few notable films were released this week across the decades, some more well-regarded than others. Of the films this week only one known 1925 film survives in its entirety. One 1935 film featured an early performance by an actress who would become a household name four years later, while another featured the screen debut of a character who would appear in two more films. A 1945 film told the story of a famous musician and his brother. A 1955 film featured an actor who would go on to fame on a 1960s sci-fi TV series, but no one even realized he was in the movie until the 1990s. One 1965 film took beach-goers to the ski slopes, and another featured an epic food fight. 1975 saw two comedy legends unite for the first time, a 1985 film created a new Brat Pack, a 1995 film completely recreated a space disaster, a 2005 film brought a new alien invasion to Earth, and a 2015 film tried to re-invigorate a sci-fi franchise. Scroll down to see all the films released this week, and tell us if any of your favorites are celebrating milestone anniversaries.

1925

• June 26 – The Scarlet West (USA, Frank J. Carroll Productions)
• June 28 – Defend Yourself (USA, W.T. Lackey Productions)
• June 28 – Passionate Youth (USA, Truart Film Co.)
• June 28 – The Making of O’Malley (USA, First National Pictures)
• June 28 – The Meddler (USA, Universal Pictures)
• June 28 – The Wild Bull’s Lair (USA, Robertson-Cole Pictures Corporation)
• June 29 – Marry Me (USA, Famous Players-Lasky Corporation)
• June 29 – Paths to Paradise (USA, Famous Players-Lasky Corporation)
• June 30 – Brand of Cowardice (USA, Phil Goldstone Productions)
• July – A Desperate Chance (USA, Larry Wheeler Productions)
• July – Ace of Clubs (USA, Morris R. Schlank Productions)
• July – Fighting Luck (USA, Larry Wheeler Productions)
• July – Red Blood (USA, Morris R. Schlank Productions)
• July – Riding Romance (USA, Morris R. Schlank Productions)
• July – The Texas Terror (USA, Morris R. Schlank Productions)
• July 1 – An Enemy of Men (USA, Columbia Pictures)
• July 1 – Fighting Youth (USA, Perfection Pictures)

The Scarlet West and Marry Me are considered lost films. The status of the other films except for the ones mentioned below are unknown.

Only a trailer for The Scarlet West survives at the Library of Congress. Paths to Paradise was thought lost until a near complete print was discovered in 1970. The final reel is missing. A copy of An Enemy of Men is held at EYE Film Institute Netherlands.

1935

• June 26 – Look Up and Laugh (London, Basil Dean)
• June 27 – Spring Tonic (USA, Fox Film Corporation)
• June 28 – Calm Yourself (USA, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
• June 28 – Love Me Forever (USA, Columbia Pictures)
• June 28 – Riding Wild (USA, Columbia Pictures)
• June 28 – The Arizonian (USA, RKO Radio Pictures)
• June 29 – Men Without Names (USA, Paramount Pictures)
• July – Boys Will Be Boys (London, Gainsborough Pictures)
• July – Cross Currents (UK, British & Dominions Film Corporation)
• July – Lightning Triggers (USA, Willis Kent Productions)
• July – McGlusky the Sea Rover (UK, British International Pictures)
• July – The Mad Hatters (UK, British & Dominions Film Corporation)
• July 1 – Branded a Coward (USA, Supreme Pictures)
• July 1 – Captured in Chinatown (USA, Consolidated Pictures Corporation)
• July 1 – Hard Rock Harrigan (USA, Sol Lesser Productions)
• July 1 – Honeymoon Limited (USA, Monogram Pictures)
• July 1 – The Love Test (UK, Fox Film Company)

Look Up and Laugh entered wide release in the UK on October 7, 1935 but has no known US theatrical release date. Boys Will Be Boys received a wide UK release from December 9, 1935 but has no known US theatrical release date. Cross Currents, The Mad Hatters and The Love Test have no known US theatrical release dates. McGlusky the Sea Rover was released in the US on September 15, 1940 as Hell’s Cargo.

Look Up and Laugh features Vivien Leigh in an early role. Love Me Forever was also known as On Wings of Song, and was Oscar-nominated for Best Sound Recording. The Arizonian was filmed under the title Boom Days.

The Schoolmaster character played by Will Hay in Boys Will Be Boys would be reprised in two future films, Good Morning, Boys and The Ghost of St. Michael’s. The character had already been established by Hay in a music hall routine.

Cross Currents was made as a quota quickie supporting feature, for distribution by Paramount to allow them to meet the annual quota established by the British government. The Love Test was also a quota quickie for distribution by the Fox Film Company in the UK.

1945

• June 27 – Rhapsody in Blue (New York City, Warner Bros. Pictures)
• June 27 – The Great John L. (USA, Bing Crosby Productions)
• June 28 – Blood on the Sun (USA, William Cagney Productions)
• June 29 – The Chicago Kid (USA, Republic Pictures)
• June 30 – Tale of Two Mice (USA, short, Warner Bros. Cartoon Studios)
• July 1 – Man from Oklahoma (USA, Republic Pictures)

Rhapsody in Blue entered wide release in the US on September 22, 1945. Paul Whiteman, Al Jolson and Oscar Levant played themselves in the film. Levant also recorded most of the piano playing in the movie. Director Irving Rapper wanted Tyrone Power to play the role of George Gershwin but was forced to use Robert Alda. Besides that bit of casting, Rapper was happy with the film, which earned Oscar nominations for Best Original Score and Best Sound Recording.

Blood on the Sun fell into public domain in 1973 after the owners of the film failed to renew the copyright in the 28th year after publication. As a result, the film has been released on video in substandard condition, and is missing four minutes of footage. New DVD and Blu-ray releases have been made from the original negative with the original 94 minute running time. The film was Oscar-nominated for Best Art Direction for a Black & White film.

Tale of Two Mice was reissued as A Tale of Two Mice, and is a sequel to A Tale of Two Kitties. The short was directed by an uncredited Frank Tashlin. Tedd Pierce and Mel Blanc provide the voices.

1955

• June 27 – Hell’s Island (USA, Pine-Thomas Productions)
• June 27 – King of the Carnival (USA, serial, Republic Pictures)
• June 28 – Not as a Stranger (New York City, Stanley Kramer Productions)
• July – Barbados Quest (UK, The Barbour Corporation Ltd.)
• July – Creature with the Atom Brain (USA, Clover Productions)
• July – Miss Tulip Stays the Night (UK, Jaywell)
• July – Room in the House (UK, Association of Cinema Technicians)
• July 1 – Ain’t Misbehavin’ (USA, Universal International Pictures)
• July 1 – Chicago Syndicate (USA, Sam Katzman Productions)
• July 1 – House of Bamboo (USA, Twentieth Century Fox)
• July 1 – Interrupted Melody (USA, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

Not as a Stranger entered wide release in the US in July 1955. Barbados Quest was released in the US on May 30, 1956 as Murder on Approval. Room in the House has no known US theatrical release date. Ain’t Misbehavin’ first opened in Japan on June 9, 1955.

Hell’s Island was re-released in 1962 as South Sea Fury. Working titles for the film were Chubasco, Love Is a Weapon and The Ruby Virgin.

King of the Carnival contains a significant amount of stock footage from the 1939 serial Daredevils of the Red Circle. It is the 66th and last serial produced by Republic Pictures, although they continued to re-release serials until 1958, and is considered among the studio’s worst. The working title was King of the Circus, and was produced in 17 days.

Not as a Stranger was the theatrical film directing debut of Stanley Kramer. The film received an Oscar nomination for Best Sound Recording, and star Frank Sinatra was BAFTA-nominated for Best Foreign Actor.

Barbados Quest starred Tom Conway, who reprised his role of Tom Martin in the sequel, Breakaway, also released in 1955. Creature with the Atom Brain was produced as the bottom half of a double feature with It Came from Beneath the Sea. Miss Tulip Stays the Night is also known as Dead by Morning. It was the last major film directed by Leslie Arliss.

House of Bamboo features Yoshiko Yamaguchi, credited as Shirley Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi had previously been a star of Japanese propaganda films in occupied China billed under a fictional identity. It is an uncredited reworking of 1948’s The Street with No Name. DeForest Kelley and Harry Carey Jr. appear in uncredited roles. The film’s working title was The Tokyo Story. Director Samuel Fuller did not feel that Sessue Hayakawa’s English was up to par and had all of his lines dubbed by Richard Loo. After the theatrical release, the film was only seen on television in a pan-and-scan version leading viewers to assume DeForest Kelley only had a small role near the end of the film. When a new 35mm CinemaScope print was struck in the 1990s, viewers were surprised to see Kelley was in the entire film, but always off to one side of the frame which was not visible in the TV version. The film was the third Hollywood studio production to be shot on location in Japan.

Australian soprano Marjorie Lawrence wanted Greer Garson to play her in Interrupted Melody, an adaptation of her memoir of the same title. The film was to begin production in 1951 with Lana Turner starring but filming did not proceed. Garson was then announced to star in 1952, but production was postponed again. The film was announced again in 1953 with Garson still attached. By 1954, Eleanor Parker was cast because all of the other candidates but Turner had left MGM by that time. Lawrence had recorded vocals for the film, but they were not usable because she had lost her upper register. Parker was a firm soprano with perfect pitch and sang during filming, but her vocals were dubbed by Eileen Farrell. Glenn Ford only agreed to do the film if he got top billing. Actor Roger Moore had just been put under contract by MGM after appearing in The Last Time I Saw Paris, and was given a key supporting role. The film earned three Oscar nominations, winning for Best Story and Screenplay.

1965

• June 27 – Fluffy (USA, Universal-Scarus Productions)
• June 27 – Hysteria (UK, Hammer Films)
• June 30 – Deadwood ’76 (USA, Fairway International Pictures)
• June 30 – Requiem for a Gunfighter (USA, Premiere Productions)
• June 30 – Ski Party (USA, Alta Vista Productions)
• June 30 – The Art of Love (USA, Cherokee Productions)
• June 30 – Tickle Me (USA, Allied Artists Pictures)
• July – Cup Fever (UK, Century Film Productions Ltd.)
• July – Licensed to Kill (UK, Alistair)
• July 27 – Monster a Go-Go (USA B. I. & L. Releasing Corp.)
• July 1 – Mudhoney (Japan, Eve Productions)
• July 1 – The Family Jewels (USA, Jerry Lewis Productions)
• July 1 – The Great Race (USA, Patricia-Jalem-Reynard Company Productions)

Hysteria first opened in the US in April 1965. Cup Fever has no known US theatrical release date. Licensed to Kill was released in the US on November 17, 1965 as The 2nd Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World. Mudhoney was released in the US on August 6, 1965. The Great Race began a roadshow engagement in the US on July 1, 1965, and went into general release on December 17.

Ski Party is considered a Beach Party spin-off with a change of location, but everyone is back on the beach at the end of the film. Annette Funicello only appears in a cameo in the opening of the film as Professor Sonya Roberts. Meredith MacRae appears uncredited as the girl on the bus behind Lesley Gore. Dwayne Hickman co-starred in the film right after making the classic Western comedy Cat Ballou, which seems like an odd career move but Hickman said Ballou was just a B-movie for Columbia at the time. The outdoor scenes were filmed in and around Sun Valley, Idaho. Producers were so happy with the film during production, a follow-up was announced to be titled Cruise Party, which was promoted in the end credits. The film was never made. Hickman and Frankie Avalon appeared together again in Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, but they swapped characters.

Tickle Me is the only Elvis Presley filmed released by Allied Artists and it saved the company from financial collapse and bankruptcy. It was the first and only Elvis film to not include new music, although Presley overdubbed some of the vocals. The film includes slapstick, sight gags and general silliness not found in other Presley films. The film’s original title was Isle of Paradise.

Cup Fever was produced for the Children’s Film Foundation in the UK, and features early appearances by Susan George and Olivia Hussey. The theme song for Licensed to Kill was re-used in the 2011 film Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy.

Herschell Gordon Lewis directed additional scenes for Monster a Go-Go uncredited, needing a second film to be released with his own feature, Moonshine Mountain. Lewis’ additions made the film disjointed with little continuity. Original director Bill Rebane had abandoned the film in 1961 after running out of money to finish filming. With the gap between Rebane’s production and Lewis’, Lewis was unable to gather the original cast so almost half the characters disappear midway through the film, replaced with new characters to fill the roles. One actor who did return had dramatically changed his look over the years and had to play the brother of his original character. At one point, when a phone supposedly rings, the sound effect is obviously a person making a noise with his mouth. The film was featured on a 1993 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Jerry Lewis co-wrote, produced, directed and starred — as seven characters — in The Family Jewels. His co-star Donna Butterworth only made one other film, Paradise, Hawaiian Style, with Elvis Presley.

At $12 million, The Great Race was the most expensive comedy film made at the time. The budget was originally $6 million, but when it ballooned United Artists dropped the film and Warner Bros. picked it up. The film is known for a scene billed as ‘the greatest pie fight ever’. Director Blake Edwards wanted Robert Wagner as the leading man, but the studio wanted Tony Curtis because the female lead was Natalie Wood, who had divorced Wagner in 1962. Curtis’ agent negotiated a $125,000 salary for the actor, which was $25,000 more than Edwards and co-star Jack Lemmon got. After Curtis was signed, his agent also noted that Edwards and Lemmon should receive equal pay and Warner Bros. agreed. Julie Andrews wanted to work on the film but was unable due to delays on The Sound of Music. At that point she had not yet married Edwards. Wood did not want to make the movie, but the studio promised her the lead in Inside Daisy Clover if she did. She accepted, thinking filming would be brief. Filming lasted five months, and Wood kept her unhappiness hidden. Upon wrapping her last day of filming, Wood went home and swallowed a bottle of prescription pills, but called her friend Mart Crowley, who got her to the hospital for emergency treatment. The pie fight scene took five days to film, using 4,000 pies. The scene lasts four minutes and twenty seconds. Raspberry, strawberry, blueberry and lemon pies were used, and to maintain continuity photos were taken of the cast at the end of each day so they could be made up the same way on the next day of shooting. Production took a break over the weekend, but the pie residue on the set stank so badly when production resumed the entire soundstage had to be aired out and required a thorough cleaning. Before filming resumed, the set was redressed with more pie residue and production commenced. The actors had fun at first, but grew weary as the days wore on. Wood choked on some pie that hit her open mouth. Lemmon exaggerated that he’d been knocked out a couple of times. At the end of filming, the cast hit Edwards with a barrage of pies they’d been hiding just waiting for the moment. The film earned five Oscar nominations, winning for Best Sound Effects, and four Golden Globe nominations.

1975

• June 26 – Sunday Too Far Away (AUS, The South Australian Film Corporation)
• June 27 – Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (USA, George Pal Productions)
• June 27 – Race with the Devil (USA, Saber Productions)
• July 1 – The Apple Dumpling Gang (USA, Walt Disney Productions)

Sunday Too Far Away received a limited US release on NNovember 27, 1978. It was the first film produced by the South Australian Film Corporation.

Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze was the last film completed by legendary producer George Pal. The film was directed by Michael Anderson, whose Around the World in 80 Days won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1956. Game show producers Mark Goodson and Bill Todman announced production on a Doc Savage film for a 1966 release, but complicated rights issues kept the film from being made. However, a comic book tie-in was published. George Pal was able to secure the rights in 1971 during long and difficult negotiations with Norma Dent, widow of the co-creator of the character, Lester Dent. Pal hoped to make a series of Doc Savage films. Pal cast Steve Reeves in the title role, but a writers strike put the film on hold, and by the time production was able to begin, both Reeves and the original director had been replaced. Michael Anderson was to direct the first film, ‘Man of Bronze’, and a second film which had already been written as the first film, ‘Archenemy of Evil’, was also announced. ‘Man of Bronze’ was written second but produced first because the first script had no background about the title character, which was all in the first novel, Man of Bronze. Pal hoped to produce movies based on all 181 Doc Savage novels. The film keeps the novel’s period setting because Pal thought a modern audience wouldn’t believe the Doc Savage code and dialog if it was set in the present day. Pal wanted an unknown for the role but he cast Ron Ely, who was known at the time for playing Tarzan on a television series.

Race with the Devil was the second of three films to star Peter Fonda and Warren Oates. Screenwriter Lee Frost was also directing the film, but he was replaced with Jack Starett after the studio learned the cast was improvising most of the dialog. Fonda and Oates nearly quit the film when Frost was fired, but eventually agreed to continue. The film was the inspiration for 2011’s Drive Angry.

The Apple Dumpling Gang was the first film to pair Don Knotts and Tim Conway. The two returned for the sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again, along with Harry Morgan but none of the other cast returned. Morgan, though, plays a different character. Disney produced a TV movie remake in 1982, Tales of the Apple Dumpling Gang, with Ed Begley Jr. in the Conway role and Arte Johnson in the Knotts role. In 1983 the TV series Gun Shy premiered with a completely different cast.

1985

• June 26 – Pale Rider (USA, The Malpaso Company)
• June 28 – St. Elmo’s Fire (USA, Delphi IV Productions)

Pale Rider is a reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse where the pale horse’s ghost rider represents Death. The film was the highest grossing Western of the 1980s, and Clint Eastwood’s only Western of the ’80s. Scenes of a Gold Rush town were filmed in the actual Gold Rush town of Columbia, California. Eastwood has stated that his character is, in fact, a ghost but the film leaves viewers to draw their own conclusions.

St. Elmo’s Fire director Joel Schumacher claimed the script was turned down by many studios, with one exec calling the seven main characters ‘the most loathsome humans he had ever read on the page.’ Anthony Edwards, Jon Cryer and Lea Thompson were among those considered for the cast. John Hughes recommended Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy, whom he had cast in The Breakfast Club. Schmacher had to fight the studio to get them cast. Demi Moore had to go to rehab before production started. Georgetown University would not allow production to film on campus due to questionable content like premarital sex (the private university is run by Jesuits), so production took place at the University of Maryland in College Park, ten miles away. The theme song written by David Foster was to be performed by John Parr, but Parr felt like it sounded like a regurgitated Fame or Flashdance tune and asked Foster to choose another song. According to Parr, he and Foster wrote the new song in two hours on a Friday afternoon. Schumacher had given guidelines of what he wanted the song to be about, and asked Foster not to include ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ in the lyrics. Parr felt it fit the song and included it anyway. Parr’s lyrics were not about the movie, which he had not seen, but about Canadian athlete Rick Hansen, who was traveling the world at the time in his wheelchair to raise awareness for spinal cord injuries, what he called the ‘Man in Motion Tour’. The song ‘St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)’ was Number 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for two weeks in September 1985. The music video for the song serves as a mini-sequel to the film featuring the seven main cast members reunited and looking sadly through the broken and dirty windows of a run-down and fire-damaged St. Elmo’s Bar. Director Kort Falkenberg III devised the concept for the video with Schumacher. Following the success of the 2024 documentary Brats, which reunited the ‘Brat Pack’, Sony Pictures began developing a legacy sequel that would hinge upon the original seven actors reprising their roles.

1995

• June 30 – Apollo 13 (USA, Imagine Entertainment)
• June 30 – Innocent Lies (UK, Red Umbrella Productions)
• June 30 – Judge Dredd (USA, Cinergi Pictures Entertainment)
• June 30 – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (USA, Saban Entertainment)

Innocent Lies has no known US theatrical release date.

Kevin Costner was originally consider to play the role of Jim Lovell in Apollo 13 because of his facial similarities to the astronaut. By the time Ron Howard came on board as director, Tom Hanks was interested in doing an Apollo 13 movie. Hanks was informed by his agent of the script being sent around, and Costner’s name was never mentioned. Hanks was cast because of his knowledge of the Apollo program and space history. John Travolta had campaigned for the Lovell role but was politely turned down. John Cusack turned down the role of Fred Haise, and Bill Paxton was cast. Brad Pitt was offered the role of Jack Swigert, but turned it down for Se7en, so the role went to Kevin Bacon. Gary Sinise was given the chance to read for any character and he chose Ken Mattingly. While planning the film, Howard decided that every shot would be original and no archival footage would be used. The pressure suits worn by the actors were exact replicas of those worn by the astronauts, right down to being airtight. With the helmets locked into place, the actors were cooled by and breathed air pumped into the suits, as in actual Apollo suits. NASA offered the Johnson Space Center Mission Control room for filming, but Howard opted to construct his own replica. One NASA employee who worked as a consultant felt the set was so realistic he tried to take the elevator at the end of the work day. The temperature on the soundstages where the Command and Lunar Modules were built was lowered to 38° F to simulate the conditions necessary to see the actors’ breath and form condensation inside the spacecraft. Signs were posted explaining the symptoms of frostbite, and the crew worked in parkas. The splashdown scene was the last to be filmed on an artificial lake on the Universal backlot. The long-range shot of the rocket in flight was filmed using a $25 1:144 scale model Revell kit, with the camera realistically shaking, which was then digitized and re-filmed off of a high resolution monitor through a black filter, slightly overexposed to keep it from looking like a videogame. The attitude control thrusters were created with CGI technology, and the same was used for the astronauts’ urine dump into space. The resolution wasn’t high enough for that so droplets sprayed from a water bottle were photographed instead. Producers wanted to use CGI for the splashdown, but the special effects supervisor insisted it would not look realistic, so a prop capsule was tossed out of a helicopter with real parachutes attached. While filming the weightless scenes in NASA’s K-135 airplane, none of the dialog was usable due to the sound of the engines so Hanks, Paxton and Bacon had to re-record all of their dialog in ADR sessions. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, winning for Film Editing and Sound. It also received five BAFTA nominations, winning for Production Design and Visual Effects, and four Golden Globe nominations. Apollo 13 was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2023.

Innocent Lies is a loose adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Towards Zero. Keira Knightley makes her film debut playing the younger version of Gabrielle Anwar’s character.

Director Danny Cannon turned down Die Hard With a Vengeance to direct Judge Dredd. Arnold Schwarzenegger was considered for the title role before Sylvester Stallone was cast. Stallone and Armand Assante wore blue contacts to match Max Von Sydow, who plays their genetic ‘father’. Assante also mimicked Stallone’s speech patterns to better reflect their relationship as siblings. Stallone selected Gianni Versace to design the futuristic but functional attire for the film. David Arnold was to score the film but he was replaced with Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith had to withdraw as post-production fell behind schedule due to commitments to other films, but he did compose a short piece of music that was used in trailers and ad campaigns. Alan Silvestri scored the final film. The film was submitted to the MPAA five times to get the NC-17 rating reduced to an R, and the studio and Stallone tried to cut it even further to get a PG-13. Cannon was so upset over the constant creative disputes with Stallone he vowed to never again work with a big-name actor. He also stated the final version of the film is not what he intended as Stallone thought it was supposed to be an action comedy, while Cannon and the screenwriter saw it as a dark satire similar to RoboCop. Stallone was nominated for Worst Actor at the 1995 Golden Raspberry Awards.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie is the first Power Rangers project from Saban to not feature footage from any of the television productions. The film was released between Seasons 2 and 3 of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

2005

• June 29 – A Decent Factory (USA, documentary, Making Movies)
• June 29 – War of the Worlds (USA, DreamWorks Pictures-Amblin Entertainment)
• June 30 – Oyster Farmer (AUS, Anthony Buckley Films)
• July 1 – Mad Hot Ballroom (USA, Nickelodeon Movies)
• July 1 – Rebound (USA, Robert Simonds Productions)

Oyster Farmer was released in the US on July 29, 2005.

Steven Spielberg asked JJ Abrams to write the script for War of the Worlds but he had to turn it down as he was writing the pilot for the TV series Lost. Screenwriter David Koepp kept the point of view of the story to a single person on the periphery of the unfolding events, and dictated that he would not included the destruction of landmark buildings as being too cliché. Spielberg wanted Miranda Otto for the role of Mary Ann, but she was pregnant at the time and felt the opportunity would be missed. Spielberg decided to incorporate her pregnancy into the story for her. Spielberg had intended to shoot the film after Munich, but Cruise liked the script so much he convinced the director to delay his film while Cruise delayed Mission: Impossible III so they could make War of the Worlds. Most of the Munich crew were brought on to the film. John Williams composed the score, and for the first time in his collaboration with Spielberg he did not have a complete film to work from, with only the first hour available for Williams to use as reference. The film received three Oscar nominations in technical categories, and Cruise received a Razzie nomination for Worst Actor.

Oyster Farmer received a bit of free publicity as star Alex O’Loughlin was a candidate for the role of James Bond following the departure of Pierce Brosnan in 2003.

The Best Damn Sports Show Period‘s Tom Arnold, John Salley, Chris Rose and Bryan Cox all appear uncredited as themselves in Rebound.

2015

• June 26 – Glass Chin (USA, ONEZERO Films)
• June 26 – Max (USA, Sunswept Entertainment)
• June 26 – Ted 2 (USA, Fuzzy Door Productions)
• July 1 – Magic Mike XXL (USA, Iron Horse Entertainment)
• July 1 – Terminator Genisys (USA, Skydance Media)

Corey Stoll portrays a boxer in Glass Chin. He had previous experience playing a boxer in Midnight in Paris, and he trained for three weeks prior to production at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn, New York.

Ted 2 features Tom Brady, Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel, Kate McKinnon, Bobby Moynihan and Taran Killam as themselves. The film was the first sequel for Seth MacFarlane. The original script focused on Ted and John attempting to smuggle pot across the country, but the story was too similar to the recently released We’re the Millers, so the concept was scrapped and a new story was written. Mila Kunis was to reprise her role as Lori, but once the pot storyline was scrapped a new lawyer character was created and there was no room for Lori in the story.

Gregory Jacobs was selected to direct Magic Mike XXL, while the first film’s director, Steven Soderbergh, acted as editor and cinematographer under different pseudonyms. The character portrayed by Jada Pinkett Smith was originally written as male. Actor and former bodybuilder Christian Boeving filmed scenes for the film, but they were edited out during the post-production process. The film was shot on location in Myrtle Beach, Savannah and Tybee Island.

Terminator Genisys is the fifth film in the Terminator franchise, playing off the events of the first two films and ignoring the sequels and television series. In early 2013, Garrett Hedlund was under consideration for the role of Kyle Reese, and director Alan Taylor wanted Tom Hardy for John Connor. Paramount wanted Brie Larson for the role of Sarah Connor, but Taylor preferred Emilia Clarke. Jai Courtney was finally confirmed for the role of Reese in February 2014. The film was shot under the code name Vista, a possible reference to the ‘hasta la vista’ line in Termintator 2: Judgment Day. The scene of Reese and a T-800 arriving in 1984 had to be recreated for the film as the rights to the first Terminator film were held by a different company. Nike had to produce new pairs of the discontinued Nike Vandal sneakers for Courtney to wear to maintain the continuity of the original film. Jason Clarke prepared for his role as John Connor by watching Edward Furlong’s performance in the second film. Courtney watched the previous films but did not try to replicate any of the Kyle Reese actors’ performances. He also had to slim down his physique to appear less imposing. A scene feature a bus flipping on the Golden Gate Bridge was filmed on a 500 foot replica of the bridge built in New Orleans without the use of visual effects. It took 12 months to create 35 shots of a digital recreation of the original Terminator, which was completed 30 minutes before the print was due to be turned in to the studio.