Review of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) by Patrick G — 17 Apr 2009

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a 2004 American pulp adventure, science fiction film written and directed by Kerry Conran in his directorial debut. The film is set in an alternative 1939 and follows the adventures of Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow), a newspaper reporter for The Chronicle, and H.

Joseph "Joe" Sullivan (Jude Law), known as "Sky Captain", as they try to track down and stop the mysterious "Dr. Totenkopf".Conran spent four years making a black and white teaser trailer with a bluescreen set up in his living room and using a Macintosh IIci personal computer.

He was able to get producer Jon Avnet to see it, who was so impressed that he spent two years working with the aspiring filmmaker on his screenplay. None of the major studios were interested in financing such an unusual film with a first-time director.

Avnet convinced Aurelio De Laurentiis to finance Sky Captain without a distribution deal.Almost 100 digital artists, modelers, animators and compositors created the multi-layered 2D and 3D backgrounds for the live-action footage while the entire movie was sketched out via hand-drawn storyboards and then re-created as computer-generated 3D animatics.

Ten months before Conran made the movie with his actors, he shot it entirely with stand-ins in Los Angeles and then created the whole movie in animatics so that the actors had an idea of what the film would look like and where to move on the soundstage.

Sky Captain grossed USD $37.7 million in North America, below its estimated $70 million budget. However, it managed to gross $20.1 million in the rest of the world, making its final worldwide tally $57.

9 million. Critical reviews were largely positive and it is notable as being one of the first major films (along with Sin City, Able Edwards, Casshern and Immortal) to be shot entirely on a "digital backlot", blending live actors with computer generated surroundings.