Movies

The Avocado Movie Club #4: Sphere (1998)

Welcome to the Movie Club! We have a brief announcement today before we get to the movie. Owen was kind enough to put together a Letterboxd list of all the movies in the current schedule. Give it a look and like if you want an easy way to keep track of everything:

https://letterboxd.com/owen1120/list/avocado-movie-club

Otherwise, it’s time to talk about the movie! Today we’re discussing our second flopbuster: Sphere.

Japanese poster

Sphere is an adaptation of the Michael Crichton novel of the same name, and was directed by Barry Levinson as his 14th feature. It was also his 4th collaboration with Dustin Hoffman, who plays a psychologist that joins a team of experts (including a marine biologist played by Sharon Stone and a mathematician played by Samuel L. Jackson) sent 1000 feet below the sea to investigate what is believed to be an alien spacecraft.

Depending on the source, the budget was reported to be around $73 million to $80 million.12 This appears to be a normal budget for a big 90s sci-fi flick, but it was higher before they delayed filming until March of 1997 in order to rewrite the script and lower the budget.3 Originally slated to be a major Christmas release in 1997, it was pushed back to February 14 1998 to avoid competition. Interesting choice for a date night! Critics were harsh on it, as it has only a 14% on RottenTomatoes, but audiences were perhaps a bit more receptive, giving it 6.1 on IMDB (although voters on RT gave it only a 38%).45 It debuted in 3rd place in the box office, grossing only $73.4 million by the end of its run, making it a box office bomb.

Trivia:67

  • The jellyfish scene used a mix of puppets, CGI, and real jellyfish footage filmed at an aquarium. Some of the real footage of the jellyfish had to be sped up three to five times its regular speed to make the jellyfish look more aggressive. They’re just chill like that. 
  • Dustin Hoffman cut his forehead open and required stitches after hitting it on a camera during the scene where the lab gets flooded. You can also see him hit his head on a table during the same scene. All in all, based on how Hoffman describes it in an interview, it seems like he really didn’t have a great time shooting that scene.
  • The sphere’s look went through many iterations. It was originally meant to be chrome, but when placed in a dark room the reflection looked black. They worked on different versions of the chrome ball for 9 months before settling on the champagne gold colour, inspired by the gold foil on the lunar landing module. 

What did you think? Has time been kind to Sphere? Share your thoughts below! 

Up Next: David Cronenberg’s directorial debut, the sci-fi body horror flick Shivers (1975)! The next thread will be posted on September 6th at 12PM. Check out the trailer below and where it’s streaming: 

USA

  • Stream: Cultpix, The Roku Channel, Tubi
  • Rent or Buy: Apple TV, Fandango, Google Play, YouTube 

Canada

  • Steam: Cultpix 
  • Rent or Buy: Nothing! 🙁 Very limited options for my fellow canucks here. I may have seen it uploaded on YouTube when I went searching for that trailer. Who’s to say? 

UK

  • Stream: Cultpix 
  • Rent or Buy: Amazon, Apple TV
  1. https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Sphere#tab=summary ↩︎
  2. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0120184/ ↩︎
  3. https://variety.com/1996/voices/columns/wag-snags-levinson-in-sphere-time-1117466240/ ↩︎
  4. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sphere ↩︎
  5. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120184/ ↩︎
  6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR7diIxrWYw ↩︎
  7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5XJU-qcXYs ↩︎