DIRECTED BY: Ron Howard

WRITTEN BY: Cyril Hume and Richard Maibaum

MEL GIBSON AS: Tom Mullen

GENRE: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller

TAGLINES:

- Someone is going to pay.

PLOT SUMMARY:

Tom Mullen (Gibson) is a wealthy corporate executive used to mediating tough business deals, and doing things his own way. Along with his beautiful wife Kate (Rene Russo) and son Sean (Brawley Nolte), Tom has all the material trappings of success, including a Fifth Avenue penthouse, an enviable position in New York society and high media visibility. But when the thing he cherishes most–his young son–is abducted by desperate criminals and held for ransom, Tom’s world of affluence and privilege comes crashing down. And after an FBI rescue operation fails, he engineers a dangerous countermeasure in a last chance effort to bring his boy back to safety. With his son’s life hanging precariously in the balance, and his wife terrified by the shocking plan, Tom offers an appalling proposal, the response to which could easily result in the loss of his son forever. –Yahoo! Movies

RELEASE DATES:

1996 November 8 (Canada)
1996 November 8 (United States)
1996 November 14 (Australia)
1996 November 21 (New Zealand)
1996 December 7 (South Korea)
1996 December 19 (Hong Kong)
1996 December 20 (Sweden)
1996 December 26 (Iceland)
1996 December 27 (Spain)
1997 January – (Serbia – Belgrade Film Festival)
1997 January 2 (Germany)
1997 January 3 (Poland)
1997 January 9 (Argentina)
1997 January 9 (Netherlands)
1997 January 10 (Denmark)
1997 January 10 (Finland)
1997 January 10 (Israel)
1997 January 10 (Switzerland)
1997 January 16 (Slovenia)
1997 January 17 (Brazil)
1997 January 22 (France)
1997 January 23 (Hungary)
1997 January 29 (Philippines)
1997 January 31 (Portugal)
1997 January 31 (South Africa)
1997 February 7 (United Kingdom)
1997 February 8 (Kuwait)
1997 February 14 (Estonia)
1997 February 15 (Japan)
1997 February 21 (Turkey)

BOX OFFICE GROSS:

United States: $136,492,681
International: $173,000,000

FILMING LOCATIONS:

New York, New York, USA

TRIVIA:

- Production was delayed a few days when Mel Gibson needed an emergency appendectomy.

- Tom (Gibson) suggests “John Smith” as a good pseudonym; Gibson provided the voice for John Smith in Pocahontas (1995).

- In the science fair scene, when Rene Russo’s character asks which school is this, they reply P.S. 41. This is an actual school which provided some of the science fair props for the scene.

- Composer Howard Shore wrote and recorded a full score, which was rejected by director ‘Ron Howard’ and replaced with a new one by James Horner.

- The nosy reporter at the party was played by actual reporter A.J. Benza and the partner of Gary Sinise in the convenience store scene was played by screenwriter Richard Price.

- This film was based on an episode of “The United States Steel Hour” (1953) called “Fearful Decision” that first aired live on June 22, 1954. It was so well received it was re-staged on May 10, 1955. A film was made from the drama called Ransom! (1956) that was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

- The story about the Eloi (above ground) en the Morlocks (under ground) that Sinise tells to Gibson by car phone is from H.G. Wells’s “The Time Machine”.

- Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jack Black both auditioned for the role of Cubby Barnes.

- Ron Howard’s first choice for the role of Jimmy Shaker was Alec Baldwin, who turned it down due to the sinister nature of the character as well as the film’s theme of endangering a child.

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