Jack the Giant Slayer

Jack the Giant Slayer (previously titled Jack the Giant Killer) is a 2013 American fantasy adventure film directed by Bryan Singer and written by Darren Lemke, Christopher McQuarrie and Dan Studney, from a story by Lemke and David Dobkin. The film, based on the British fairy tales "Jack the Giant Killer" and "Jack and the Beanstalk", stars Nicholas Hoult, Eleanor Tomlinson, Stanley Tucci, Ian McShane, Bill Nighy, Eddie Marsan and Ewan McGregor. The film tells the story of Jack, a young farmhand who must rescue a princess from a race of giants after inadvertently opening a gateway to their land in the sky.

Development of Jack the Giant Slayer began in 2005, when Lemke first pitched the idea. D. J. Caruso was hired to direct the film in January 2009, but in September of that year, Caruso was replaced by Singer, who hired McQuarrie and Studney to rework the script. The main characters were cast between February and March 2011, and principal photography began in April 2011 in England with locations in Somerset, Gloucestershire and Norfolk. The release of the film was moved back in post-production to allow more time for special effects and marketing.

Jack the Giant Slayer premiered on February 26, 2013, in Hollywood. It was released theatrically in the United States on March 1, 2013, receiving mixed reviews from critics and was a box office bomb, earning $197 million worldwide against the budget of $185–200 million.

Plot
In the Kingdom of Cloister, a young peasant boy, Jack, is told a bedtime story by his father while elsewhere Princess Isabel is told the same story by her mother, the Queen. The story tells of a time long past in which monks, trying to find God, crafted magic beans. The beans grew into a large beanstalk that reached far into sky to an unknown realm. This place, Gantua, was home to a race of giants who killed the monks and came down to attack the earth below. Only through use of a magical crown was King Erik able to control the giants and force them to return. The beanstalk was then cut down and the giants, trapped as they were, swore revenge on all in King Erik’s line. When King Erik died, his magic crown and the remaining beans were buried with him to keep them safe.

Ten years later, Jack (Nicholas Hoult), now orphaned and living with his uncle, is sent to sell a horse and cart at market in order to purchase needed supplies. There, he runs into a disguised Isabel (Eleanor Tomlinson), whom he defends from an attack. The royal guard appears and Isabel, having snuck away, is taken back to the castle. Afterwards, Jack realizes his cart was stolen while he was preoccupied and he is forced to head home dejectedly.

Lord Roderick (Stanley Tucci), second in command to King Brahmwell (Ian McShane), discovers that a monk had broken into his study. It is revealed that Roderick has been plotting against the King by collecting the hidden beans and crown. The monk had found the beans, but not the crown. Roderick commands that the gates of the city be closed until the monk is found. The monk, desperate to escape, runs into Jack and exchanges the beans for his horse, promising that the other monks will pay him handsomely for their return. Warning Jack not to get the beans wet, the monk rides away, pursued by the guards.

Isabel having been brought to her father, King Brahmwell, is scolded for running off. She is told she needs to start taking responsibility for her actions. Isabel argues with her father, begging him to let her take responsibility by giving her more freedom and allowing her to get to know her people. But the King refuses. Isabel is to be married to Roderick and is expected to forget her dreams of marrying for love and seeking adventure. Unhappy but unable to argue further, Isabel agrees and walks away.

At the same time, Jack, having returned home, is scolded by his uncle for accepting the beans. Jack is similarly told to start taking responsibility. His uncle, as payment for the horse and cart he has lost, begins to gather what is left of Jack’s father’s belongings to sell for supplies. He then leaves to head to town.

Isabel again disguises herself and sneaks out of the castle. She rides on her horse, but is caught in an unexpected storm. She rides faster, hoping to find shelter. She comes upon Jack’s door and knocks just as he opens. His uncle having yet to return, Jack had intended to go out after him. But upon seeing and recognizing Isabel, Jack instead stays to look after her. While they talk, the rain leaks into the house and wets one of the beans. It grows into a massive beanstalk that traps Isabel in the house as it is lifted into the sky. Jack attempts to free her, but is knocked away and he falls to the ground.

The next morning, Jack is awoken by King Brahmwell and the royal guard. Isabel’s disappearance had been traced to Jack’s house and Jack confirms that the house was taken by the beanstalk with Isabel in it. King Brahmwell sends Lord Roderick, Wicke (Ewen Bremner) – Roderick’s second, his best knight Elmont (Ewan McGregor), Crawe (Eddie Marsan) – Elmont’s second, and several other knights up the beanstalk to retrieve her. Jack volunteers himself, asking to join them, and King Brahmwell agrees.

The journey up the stalk is long and difficult. At one point during a storm, a knight is struck by lightning and he, along with most of the other knights, are cut away by Roderick and they fall to their deaths. Along the way, Elmont, having seen how Jack speaks about Isabel, reminds him to not get his hopes up as, according to the law, a princess must marry a noble. Upon reaching the top, they find themselves in the realm of Gantua. As they set off to find Isabel, Roderick corners Jack and takes the remaining beans from him, though Jack secretly keeps one.

The group splits up. Elmont, Crawe, and Jack continue on while Roderick, Wicke, and the last knight go another way. After an encounter with a giant’s trap, Elmont and Crawe are knocked out and taken captive by the giant while Jack trails behind. Roderick and Wicke kill their companion knight and Wicke is killed shortly afterwards by another giant. At the last moment, Roderick reveals that he is carrying the magical crown, forcing the giant to obey him.

Elmont and Crawe are taken to the leader of the giants, Fallon (Bill Nighy), where they are reunited with Isabel. The trio refuse to reveal how they arrived, so Fallon eats Crawe. Before he can continue the questioning, however, Roderick arrives wearing the magical crown and takes command. He proclaims himself king of the giants, orders that Isabel and Elmont be eaten, and has the giants prepare to descend the beanstalk and conquer the world for him.

Jack finds Isabel and Elmont in the giant kitchen and works to free them. In the process, he kills the giant cook by dropping on top of him with one of the kitchen knives. The three flee towards the beanstalk, but find their way blocked by a giant sent by Roderick. Jack and Elmont drop a beehive into the giant’s helmet and the giant, in his panic, falls off the ledge to his death. When the giant hits the ground, the body is seen by King Brahmwell. Fearing a giant invasion, he puts the safety of the Earth ahead of Isabelle's return and orders the beanstalk to be cut down.

Jack and Isabel begin to climb down the beanstalk while Elmont stays behind to deal with Roderick and reclaim the crown. During the climb, Jack and Isabelle admit to their growing feelings for each other and share a kiss. Meanwhile, Elmont attacks Roderick when he arrives with the giants. After a vicious battle, Elmont fatally wounds Roderick. Despite Roderick’s cries for help, the giants manage to resist the magical crown’s control long enough for Roderick to die. Fallon then takes the crown and wears it as a ring, claiming the title of king.

Jack and Isabel are still a large distance from the ground when the beanstalk begins to fall, though they manage to survive the crash. Elmont, upon seeing the top of the beanstalk fall away, jumps onto it and rides it to the ground. After Isabel is reunited with her father, King Brahmwell rewards Jack for her rescue, though Jack and Isabel are disheartened at the need to say goodbye. The group departs and Jack remains behind.

Fallon, initially angry at the beanstalk’s removal, finds the remaining beans that had been dropped by Roderick. He uses them to grown four more beanstalks and the giants ride them to the ground to attack the humans. Jack sees the new beanstalks approaching and quickly rides after Isabel and the King to warn them. He reaches them just ahead of the giants and they all rush to reach the safety of the city walls. After crossing the bridge, Jack and Isabel are tasked with lighting a beacon to warn other kingdoms of the invasion while Elmont and King Brahmwell defend the castle against the giants. They raise the drawbridge while they pour oil into the moat to light it on fire.

At the beginning of the attack, after seeming to drown in the fiery castle moat, Fallon finds an underwater passageway into the catacombs under the castle. He swims through it and manages to break into the throne room, finding Isabel and Jack there. Though they try to run, both are captured and Fallon lifts Jack to eat him. Jack throws the final bean down Fallon's throat and it grows into a beanstalk, ripping Fallon apart. Jack takes the crown and uses it to stop the giants’ attack.

The giants are sent back to their realm and forced to cut down the beanstalks that allowed them access to earth. King Brahmwell changes the law and allows Jack and Isabelle to marry. They have twin children and are seen telling them the story of the giants, this time adding in the events they themselves had lived through.

As time passes, their story evolves from truth, into legend, into the fairy tale known today. The magic crown is secretly crafted into St Edward's Crown. When time eventually reaches present day London, a touring class observes the crown in a museum where one boy, revealed to be Roderick’s descendant, gazes at the crown knowingly. The film ends with the giants’ realm being shown to still exist above London in the modern day.

Development
Screenwriter Darren Lemke first proposed the idea of contemporizing the "Jack and the Beanstalk" fairy tale with CGI in 2005 before the release of other contemporary films based on fairy tales such as Alice in Wonderland (2010), Red Riding Hood (2011) and Snow White and the Huntsman (2012). Lemke described the script as "a male-oriented story of a boy becoming a man" and drew a parallel between Jack and Luke Skywalker of Star Wars. In January 2009, New Line Cinema hired D. J. Caruso to direct the script, which was subsequently rewritten by Mark Bomback. By August 2009, it was reported that Bryan Singer might be replacing Caruso; this became official in September 2009.

In April 2010, Singer re-teamed with screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie to rework the screenplay. Singer and McQuarrie had previously collaborated on Public Access, The Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil, and Valkyrie. Singer stated, "Chris McQuarrie did a significant re-write for me. He brought a different structure. It was very much a page-one situation; a different storyline. It involved the same characters, but some we juggled around and switched around. He just brought a very different perspective". McQuarrie's re-write included a deeper back story for the giants and explanation of their relationship with the humans, which Singer considered a "vast improvement"; it also upped the budget. To get the budget back in line, Singer brought in television writer Dan Studney to work on the project.

In May 2010, ReelzChannel reported that production of the film would be delayed until February 2011. The report cited Singer's interest in being able to pre-visualize scenes with the digital giants in-camera with the live-action actors (a la James Cameron's Avatar) and the need for more time to work out the complex process as reasons for the delay.

Pre-production
In October 2010, New Line gave Bryan Singer the green-light to begin pre-production work on Jack the Giant Killer, with production scheduled to begin the following spring. In November 2010, Singer began screen-testing for the male and female leads. Aaron Johnson, Nicholas Hoult, and Aneurin Barnard were considered for the role of the young farmhand, and Adelaide Kane, Lily Collins, and Juno Temple tested for the princess role.

In December 2010, Singer said, "I'm very much looking forward to using the EPIC Red for my next movie Jack the Giant Killer which will be shot in, what else, 3D. The camera's incredibly compact size and extraordinary resolution are ideal for the 3D format. But more importantly Jack the Giant Killer is my first movie set in a time before electricity. The EPIC's extraordinary exposure latitude will allow me to more effectively explore the use of natural light".

In February 2011, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Stanley Tucci had been cast as the antagonist, the king's advisor who plans on taking over the kingdom, and Bill Nighy and John Kassir were cast as Fallon, the two-headed leader of the giants; Nighy would play the big head and Kassir would play the smaller head. Also in February, Nicholas Hoult was offered the lead role. Singer said he had liked him since Skins and was very supportive of his casting in X-Men: First Class. Later that month, Ewan McGregor joined the cast as the leader of the king's elite guard, who helps fight giants.

In March 2011, Eleanor Tomlinson was cast opposite Nicholas Hoult as the princess and Ian McShane was cast to play her father, King Brahmwell. Two days later, New Line and Warner Bros. announced a release date of June 15, 2012.

Filming
Principal photography began on April 12, 2011, in the British countryside. In May 2011, production moved to Somerset, England for two weeks with filming scheduled in Wells, Cheddar and secret locations in the county including scenes filmed at Wells Cathedral. Also in May, scenes were shot at Puzzlewood in the Forest of Dean near Coleford, Gloucestershire. Puzzlewood, which features unusual tree and rock formations, has previously been used for filming of the BBC TV series Doctor Who and Merlin. The same forest is said to have inspired J. R. R. Tolkien to write The Hobbit. Later that month, filming took place at Norwich Cathedral in Norwich, Norfolk.

About the performance-capture process Singer stated, "It's fascinating ... It takes you back to play-acting as a kid in your living room because you are running around and having to imagine that you are in Gantua and imagine that there are these weapons and all these giant things. But there's nothing when you are there other than styrofoam and blocks. It forces the actors to regress to when they would play-act as kids or do minimalist theatre. But in that way it's fascinating - I can see why Robert Zemeckis and James Cameron have started to shoot pictures this way".

Post-production
In January 2012, Warner Bros. moved back the release date by nine months, from June 15, 2012, to March 22, 2013. The Hollywood Reporter stated: "Warner can likely afford the move because of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, which opened in July. And moving the film back gives the studio more time for special effects, as well as a chance to attach trailers for it to Peter Jackson's Christmas tentpole The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey". In October 2012, Warner Bros. again moved the release date, this time to March 1, 2013, three weeks earlier than the previous date. Warner Bros also changed the title of the film from Jack the Giant Killer to Jack the Giant Slayer.

The film's special effects were completed by seven different visual effects houses: Digital Domain, Giant Studios, The Third Floor, MPC, Soho VFX, Rodeo FX and Hatch Productions. Creating the giants took four main steps. The first step was Pre-Capture, in which performance capture was used to capture the actor's facial and body movements and render them in a real-time virtual environment. The second step took place during principal photography, where Simulcam technology was used to help the human characters virtually interact with the giants that were rendered earlier in Pre-Capture. The third step was Post-Capture, a second performance capture shoot to adjust giants' movements to seamlessly fit the live-action performances. The final step involved putting the finishing touches on the giant's animation, skin, hair and clothing, and composition in the shots. Creating the beanstalk involved two main requirements: set extension for shots of the actors interacting with the beanstalk, which were shot against a bluescreen, and complete CG renderings for shots of the beanstalk growing and extending from Earth into the world of the giants.

Singer stated that he had to tone down the special effects to keep the film age-appropriate for children. He said, "This movie probably has a bigger on-screen body count than any movie I've done before. It's done in a way that's fun, but it was a challenge to get away with that without it becoming upsetting to people ... It was about creating a tone like Raiders of the Lost Ark or Star Wars that allows you to get away with a lot of stuff because it feels like a movie."

Soundtrack
The film's soundtrack features music by John Ottman, who also served as an editor and associate producer on the film. Jack the Giant Slayer marks Ottman's seventh collaboration with director Bryan Singer; they previously worked together on Public Access, The Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil, X2: X-Men United, Superman Returns, and Valkyrie. The soundtrack album was released on February 26, 2013, by WaterTower Music.

Release
Jack the Giant Slayer premiered on Tuesday, February 26, 2013, at TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California.

Box office
Pre-release tracking showed that Jack the Giant Slayer was projected to gross $30 million to $35 million in its opening weekend, a disappointing figure considering it cost at least $185 million to produce. The film grossed $400,000 from Thursday night and midnight runs, ahead of its wide release open on Friday, March 1, 2013. Through the weekend, the film grossed $28.01 million in North America at 3,525 locations, taking first place at the box office. The audience was 55% male and 56% were over the age of 25, despite the studio's efforts to target families. At the same time, the film took in an additional $13.7 million in 10 Asian markets at 1,824 locations.

Four weeks into its theatrical run, The Hollywood Reporter reported that the film was on track to lose between $125 million and $140 million for Legendary Pictures, suggesting that the film would likely close at $200 million worldwide, short of its combined production and marketing budget. Jack the Giant Slayer closed in theaters on June 13, 2013, grossing a total of $65,187,603 in North America and $197,687,603 worldwide. In explaining its box office failure, analysts pointed to the conflict between the director's darker, more adult-themed vision with the studio's desire for a family-friendly product, leading to the final compromise of a PG-13 film that did not sufficiently appeal to adults or children.

Critical reception
Jack the Giant Slayer received a mixed response from film critics. On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes the film has a rating of 52%, based on 208 reviews, with an average rating of 5.70/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "It's enthusiastically acted and reasonably fun, but Jack the Giant Slayer is also overwhelmed by digital effects and a bland, impersonal story." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 51 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "B+" on scale of A to F.

Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter said, "Simply in terms of efficient storytelling, clear logistics and consistent viewer engagement, Jack is markedly superior to the recent Hobbit." Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times said, "Jack the Giant Slayer is a rousing, original and thoroughly entertaining adventure."

Justin Chang of Variety said, "Jack the Giant Slayer feels, unsurprisingly, like an attempt to cash in on a trend, recycling storybook characters, situations and battle sequences to mechanical and wearyingly predictable effect." Manohla Dargis of The New York Times said, "This finally is just a digitally souped-up, one-dimensional take on 'Jack and the Beanstalk'." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times said, "Bryan Singer's take on the old fairy tale has all things money can buy — except a good script."

Home media
In April 2013, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment announced the release of Jack the Giant Slayer on Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray Disc and DVD. The discs were released on June 18, 2013, in two editions; a three-disc 3D/Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, and a two-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo pack. Both sets include the "Become a Giant Slayer" featurette, deleted scenes, a gag reel and a digital copy of the film.