Taglines: Don’t look up.
In the sci-fi thriller Skyline, strange lights descend on the city of Los Angeles, drawing people outside like moths to a flame where an extraterrestrial force threatens to swallow the entire human population off the face of the Earth.
Jarrod and his pregnant girlfriend Elaine travel to Los Angeles to meet his old friend and successful entrepreneur Terry, and his wife Candice. Terry gives a party in his apartment for Jarrod and offers a job position to him in LA. Terry’s assistant and lover Denise (Crystal Reed) and his friend Ray (Neil Hopkins) sleep on the couch in the living room, but in the dawn of the next morning, the group is awakened by mysterious beams of blue light. Ray stares at the light and is taken by the mysterious force. The group of friends try to escape from the alien invaders.
Skyline is a 2010 alien invasion science fiction thriller film produced and directed by Brothers Strause, directors of Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. The film was released on November 12, 2010. It stars Eric Balfour, Scottie Thompson, Brittany Daniel, Crystal Reed, David Zayas and Donald Faison. Skyline was a box office success, grossing nearly $79 million worldwide against its $10–20 million budget, despite being panned by critics. The brothers stated before the film’s release that they were already working on a sequel.
Skyline opened on November 12, 2010 and grossed $4,737,555 on its opening day from 2,880 theaters for a 1-day average of $1,645 per theater. It grossed a total of $11,692,415 over its opening weekend from 2,880 theaters for a 3-day average of $4,060 per theater, and ranking #4 for the weekend behind Megamind at #1, Unstoppable at #2, and Due Date at #3. As of January 2013, the film has made $21,416,355 in the United States and $57,277,016 internationally for a worldwide total of $78,693,371.
About the Production
Since their teens, brothers COLIN and GREG STRAUSE (collectively known as the Brothers Strause) have been immersed in the world of visual effects. They began their careers crafting VFX for music videos and commercials and created their firm, the Santa Monica, California, based Hydraulx, as a full-service VFX house. After several years directing shorter-form projects, they were hired to helm the latest chapter in the blockbuster franchise that pits brutal aliens against galactic predators: 2007’s AVPR: Aliens vs. Predator—Requiem.
When they considered making another film, they knew it would only happen if they could craft it in-house and control every aspect of production. A few weeks before Thanksgiving in 2009, the brothers were having lunch with longtime animation supervisor of Hydraulx, Joshua Cordes, and frequent writer of their music videos and commercials, Liam O’Donnell. They began to discuss ideas for a project they could entirely create within their own team.
The brothers asked: “What if aliens were to come to this planet and trick us?” For some time, they had been pondering the concept of “Siren light” that played off of the ancient Greek tales of exotic women who would sing and lure sailors to crash their boats into the rocks. By emitting a seductive, beautiful sound that would pique our curiosity, the light would make us run to the window and take a look. Once we did, it would render us into powerless zombies and make us walk out of our building and out into the open. From there, newly susceptible, we would be abducted by the aliens.
Director Colin Strause elaborates on the film: “It’s a visually powerful epic alien-abduction movie with a great character story and heart. The premise is mass abduction on a global scale. For example, most people driving on a freeway who see an accident would look at the wreck. If some entity used these instinctual weaknesses against us, then it would wipe us out instantly. The event makes everyone equal. Everything flatlines at that point, and they are trying to survive what could be the end of the Earth.”
O’Donnell discusses the team’s process: “I’d been working with Greg and Colin for five years, developing scripts and creating treatments for their commercials and music videos. Kristian had been a producer with them on a couple of music videos up in Vancouver. We were trying to figure out what we could do with our own cameras and other equipment, and we had just shot a music video with Joshua at Hydraulx studio. The brothers own all these great spaces, and we had these awesome cameras and wondered what we could do to take advantage of that. We realized Greg had this amazing view of the city, and our story quickly became the end of the world outside of his window.”
Fortuitously, Cordes had written a horror screenplay and shared it with his longtime collaborators. Explains Cordes: “While I was writing that script, I gave it to Liam to get his thoughts. Then he started giving me his scripts, and we began a working relationship. When the brothers suggested doing something internally, Liam approached me about joining forces and tackling this project.”
As the team discussed ideas for the brothers’ first “homegrown” film, they fleshed out the idea of what would happen when hundreds of thousands of people were enticed outside to stare up at the sky, just before they are sucked into alien ships and Earth becomes a vacant lot. They knew they could deliver the iconic visuals that had made Hydraulx the go-to group for VFX, but they also realized they had to answer big questions for the audience. Once all the people have been abducted, what happens to them? What do the people who are left to survive do next?
Colin Strause reflects that what most interested his brother and him was that there would be no compromise on their vision with Skyline, as they had the capabilities to make an independent film with enormous scope. “One of the coolest things about what the filmmakers behind Paranormal Activity did was that they just did it themselves,” Colin Strause says. “They didn’t have to answer to anyone. We thought, ‘We could do that, but we could do that 100 times bigger… because we have an effects studio, we’ve worked on almost 70 movies and we own our own equipment.’”
Along with brother Greg, he knew that creating this project independently would be freeing and limit how much they would have to give in to a financing studio’s requests. “If you’re spending $100 million on a movie, a studio is going to want what it wants,” he adds. “There’s always going to be some compromise. If it’s our money, then there is no compromise.”
Continue Reading and View the Theatrical Trailer
Skyline (2010)
Directed by: Colin Strause, Greg Strause
Starring by: Eric Balfour, Scottie Thompson, Brittany Daniel, Crystal Reed, Neil Hopkins, Tanya Newbould, Phet Mahathongdy, Donald Faison, Tanya Newbould, Robin Gammell, Tony Black
Screenplay by: Joshua Cordes
Production Design by: Drew Dalton
Cinematography by: Michael Watson
Film Editing by: Nicholas Wayman-Harris
Costume Design by: Bobbie Mannix
Music by: Matthew Margeson
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence, some language, and brief sexual content.
Distributed by: Rogue Pictures
Release Date: November 12, 2010