At breakneck speed, secret agent Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) sends the ordinary-seeming June Havens’ (Cameron Diaz) life on a screeching detour… and vice versa. June boarded a plane in Wichita, Kansas and began chatting up her charming, mysterious seatmate – Roy. Soon after, everything changed. Suddenly, the plane was hurtling into a cornfield without any living crew or passengers.
Without even time to catch her breath, June finds herself being pursued around the globe — dodging bullets in Boston, leaping rooftops in Austria, and running from bulls in Seville – all in the company of a potentially duplicitous, possibly unstable yet decidedly alluring secret agent at the center of a life-or-death adventure that will push these two people from opposite worlds to do the one thing they’ve long avoided: trust. Now, nothing will be the same again for them, as this exceptional secret operative finds himself undone by ordinary love and this everyday woman finds herself capable of the most extraordinary things she could imagine.
Knight and Day is an action comedy film starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. The film, directed by James Mangold, is Cruise and Diaz’s second on-screen collaboration following the 2001 film Vanilla Sky. Cameron Diaz plays June Havens, a classic car restorer who unwittingly gets caught up with the eccentric secret agent Roy Miller, played by Cruise, who is on the run from the CIA.
The film’s investors offset funding costs by paying Cruise a lower advance fee and providing him a share of revenue only after the financiers were repaid their investment in the production. Filming took place in several locations, mainly in several cities located in Massachusetts, while other scenes were filmed in Spain and parts of Austria.
Knight and Day was released in the United States on June 24, 2010. The film has received mixed reviews from film critics and was a success at the box office, grossing over $260 million worldwide. The film also has an official remake in Bollywood with Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif in the lead roles titled Bang Bang!. It was released on 2 October 2014.
Knight and Day performed poorly at the box office in its debut, with a take of US$3.8 million the day after its initial June 23, 2010 release in revenue from ticket sales in the United States and Canada. This was less than the film Toy Story 3, which earned $13 million at the box office on the same day. Knight and Day did not place within the top 50 all-time Wednesday film openings.
An analysis of the opening day results by Box Office Mojo noted it was the worst attended action film debut for Tom Cruise since his appearance in the 1986 Legend. It was the lowest-grossing opening day for Cruise in a leading role since his performance in the 1992 film Far and Away. Cruise’s last starring role prior to Knight and Day, in the 2008 film Valkyrie, generated $8.5 million on its opening day.
About the Production
From the minute June and Roy encounter each other in Kansas, the pace of Knight and Day begins to accelerate, until they are on a ceaseless, death-defying journey around the world, making stops in Boston, New York, the Alps, Austria, Spain and the tropical Caribbean. For the filmmakers, this meant an ambitious production on every level. Shooting in five different countries while forging a wide variety of original stunts and intricately choreographed set pieces, the production of Knight and Day, much like its characters, had to hit the ground running.
“In the beginning it was like sitting in front of a giant chess board and puzzling over all these different scenarios,” admits Cathy Konrad. “The exhilarating part was having the chance to create as you go.”
As they dove in, Mangold put the film’s visual emphasis on the real – favoring in-camera action over CGI, the latter being employed primarily to enhance the live feeling of the scenes. “What we wanted to do was to create a seamless look that feels like you’re always in the middle of the action,” Mangold explains. “We wanted the audience to always feel like they are with June, because she is the one who is like us, has led an ordinary existence and is suddenly on the wild ride of a lifetime. The film is about a fantasy made real, if you will, and that was the tone.”
In order to move with maximum speed and creativity, Mangold and Konrad surrounded themselves with the devoted team of cinematic craftsmen with whom they shot the hit Western, 3:10 to Yuma. The team includes cinematographer Phedon Papamichael, who collaborated closely with Mangold on Knight and Day, choosing a hands-on, immediate camera style to draw the audience deeper and deeper into the film’s labyrinth of humor, heat and peril.
“Phedon and I wanted the film to have a classic simplicity,” comments Mangold. “We wanted it to be beautiful and glamorous and feel like a whirlwind trip around the world – to bring out the rich tones of Jamaica, the baked, warm sun of Spain, the icy landscapes of the Alps and Austria and the hometown feel of Boston. It gives the film a feeling of wish-fulfillment for the audience, of going to places you’ve never seen, and feeling like you’re really there. That was a very important component of the film.”
“I’ve never really done a picture like this before,” admits Papamichael. “It’s not a pure action movie and it’s not entirely a romantic comedy, and I think if you could call it any genre, you’d call it cool, inventive fun. For me, it was irresistible because there’s so much potential for combining beauty with visual excitement, especially the way it constantly transitions from one country to another – one minute someone passes out in Jamaica, the next they’re in jeopardy on a train in the Alps. As a cinematographer it was a tremendous challenge to pull this off, but it was equally tremendous fun to play with so many different looks and styles that all had to fit together.”
He continues: “There’s sustained visual energy, because the characters never stop moving, never stop running. They’re on the maximum ride of their lives and that’s the feeling on screen.”
Flying in the face of many dark, grainy recent thrillers, Mangold and Papamichael chose grace over grit as an overall visual concept. “We wanted everything to be almost sparkling and color-saturated – it’s a look that showcases Tom, Cameron and our beautiful locations,” says Papamichael.
The rapport between Cruise and Diaz also gave Papamichael a lot to work with visually. “Their chemistry is simply magical,” he says. “It’s not something you can create – it’s already there and we just tried to capture it to the max.”
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Knight and Day (2010)
Directed by: James Mangold
Starring: Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard, Viola Davis, Olivier Martinez, Paul Dano, Maggie Grace, Mark Blucas, Jordi Molla, Falk Hentschel, Gal Gadot, Jack O’Connell, Rich Manley
Screenplay by: Scott Frank, James Mangold
Production Design by: Andrew Menzies
Cinematography by: Phedon Papamichael
Film Editing by: Quincy Z. Gunderson, Michael McCusker
Costume Design by: Arianne Phillips
Set Decoration by: Jay Hart
Art Direction by: Greg Berry, Gregory S. Hooper, Iñigo Navarro, Jeff Wisniewski
Music by: John Powell
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sequences of action violence throughout, brief strong language.
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: June 25, 2010
