| 10,000 BC | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Roland Emmerich |
| Written by |
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| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Ueli Steiger |
| Edited by | Alexander Berner |
| Music by |
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Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures[1] |
Release dates |
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Running time | 109 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $105 million |
| Box office | $269.8 million |
10,000 BC is a 2008 Americanaction-adventure film, directed byRoland Emmerich, and written by Emmerich andHarald Kloser. The cast includesSteven Strait,Camilla Belle, andCliff Curtis. The film depicts the journeys of aprehistoric tribe ofmammoth hunters.
10,000 BC premiered atPotsdamer Platz on February 10, 2008, and was released byWarner Bros. Pictures on March 7. It received negative reviews from critics and grossed $270 million against a $105M budget.
In 10,000BC, ahunter-gatherer tribe called the Yagahl live in theUral Mountains. They survive by huntingwoolly mammoths, but as the migrations grow more scarce, uncertainty as to their future mounts. When a young blue-eyed girl is brought to their camp, the lone survivor of an attack of "four-legged demons", the Yagahl'sshamanisticNeanderthal Old Mother prophesizes that the demons will come for them as well after their last mammoth hunt. The girl, named Evolet, will be betrothed to the champion of this hunt, and the pair will lead the Yagahl into a new way of life. Unwilling to leave the Yagahl's future up to this prophecy, the tribe's chief hunter and bearer of the White Spear leaves on his own to search for another way to save his people. He entrusts the White Spear to his young son D'Leh, and the true purpose of his quest to his friend Tic'Tic. The tribe's children ridicule D'Leh for what they view as his father's cowardice, and when he seeks comfort from Evolet, the two begin to fall in love.
Years later, when the mammoths finally return, the adult D'Leh hunts them with his tribe's men under Tic'Tic's leadership and kills one by accident, inadvertently winning the White Spear and Evolet. The next day, horse-mounted riders attack the camp. The warlord, taken by Evolet's beauty, kidnaps her, enslaves the able-bodied, and kills those who fight back, leaving very few survivors. D'Leh, Tic'Tic, Ka'Ren, and a young boy, Baku, set out to rescue their fellow Yagahl as Old Mother follows their journey in spirit. During an attack on the slavers byterror birds, Evolet is recaptured along with Ka'Ren and Baku, and Tic'Tic is wounded. While hunting, D'Leh falls into a pit, where he helps free a trappedsaber-tooth tiger, asking it not to eat him before escaping. Tic'Tic recovers and finds their way to asedentary Naku village, also attacked by the riders. The surviving villagers nearly attack them until the saber-tooth tiger comes to save D'Leh from the initially hostile Naku. They also learn that D'Leh's father was a guest of the Naku before the riders captured him.
Several tribes arrive to form a coalition to defeat the slavers, with D'Leh as their leader. They find the ships holding Evolet and their loved ones but fail to reach them before they cast off. They set out to follow on foot, and D'Leh learns to use the North Star to navigate the journey. D'Leh and the tribes discover an advancedEgyptian civilization ruled by the "Almighty", an untouchable god-king, who is using the kidnapped tribesmen along with some mammoths to buildpyramids. D'Leh and Tic’Tic sneak into the slave cages, and D’Leh learns that his father was killed trying to defend a slave. The party is spotted by the guards, who Tic'Tic kills before he succumbs to his wound. D'Leh and the tribesman infiltrate the civilization, and D'Leh starts a rebellion among the slaves, killing many of the Almighty's forces. However, Ka'Ren sacrifices himself as D'Leh eventually starts a stampede.
The Almighty threatens to kill Evolet if they do not abandon their rebellion. D'Leh feigns acceptance but kills the Almighty with the White Spear, breaking his illusion of godhood. During the ensuing battle, the warlord fatally wounds Evolet, who is then killed by D'Leh. He is devastated when Evolet dies in his arms, but her life is restored in exchange for Old Mother's, who dies having fulfilled her final duty. With the Almighty dead and his civilization destroyed, the Yagahl bid the other tribes farewell and return home with seeds collected by D’Leh's father, given to them by the Naku to begin a new life.
In an alternative ending, the scene shifts forward many years into the future, showing Baku's retelling of the story by the camp fire. It ends with a child asking what had happened to the "Mountains of the Gods", and Baku responds, "They were taken back by the sands. Lost to time, lost to man".
The film incorporates numerous anachronisms and inaccuracies in its depiction of prehistoric life. While woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers may have existed as late as 10,000 B.C., both species were on the brink of extinction around this time, likely due to a combination of human hunting, disease, and climate change. The film's portrayal of mammoth behavior as being led by a male herd leader is inconsistent with evidence from modern elephant behavior, which suggests that herds were led by older females, with males expelled at puberty.[3]
The inclusion of advanced civilizations, pyramid-like monuments, written language, and metal tools in the narrative is highly inaccurate. Such developments would not emerge until approximately 3,000 B.C., during the urbanization of regions such as the Nile, Euphrates, and Indus river valleys. Early evidence of agriculture dates to around 9,400 B.C., but organized farming and the use of tools like hoes would not have been widespread at the time depicted in the film. Additionally, while some early stone monuments, such as Göbekli Tepe, date to roughly 9,000 B.C., the advanced technology shown in the film, including metal tools and the sextant, is misplaced by several millennia.[3]
Roland Emmerich opened casting sessions in late October 2005.[4] In February 2006,Camilla Belle andSteven Strait were announced to star in the film, with Strait as the mammoth hunter and Belle as his love interest.[5] Emmerich decided that casting well known actors would distract from the realistic feel of the prehistoric setting. "If like,Jake Gyllenhaal turned up in a movie like this, everybody would be, 'What's that?'", he explained. The casting of unknown actors also helped keep the film's budget down.[6]
At the 2008Wondercon, Emmerich mentioned the fiction ofRobert E. Howard as a primary influence for the film's setting, as well as his love for the filmQuest for Fire (1981) and the bookFingerprints of the Gods.[7] He invited composerHarald Kloser to help write the screenplay after he liked his story suggestions toThe Day After Tomorrow.[8] When the project received the greenlight fromColumbia Pictures, screenwriter John Orloff began work on a new draft of the original script. Columbia Pictures, underSony Pictures Entertainment, dropped the project due to a busy release calendar, andWarner Bros. Pictures picked up the project in Sony's absence.[9] The script went through a second revision with Matthew Sand and a final revision withRobert Rodat.[5]
Production began in early 2006 in South Africa andNamibia.[5] Location filming also took place insouthern New Zealand[10] andThailand. Emmerich wanted to shoot the entire film in Africa but was barred from shooting a certain helicopter scene which led to them going to New Zealand for those shots.[11] Before shooting began, the production had spent eighteen months onresearch and development for thecomputer-generated imagery. Two companies recreated prehistoric animals. To cut time (it was taking sixteen hours to render a single frame) 50% of the CGI models' fur was removed, as "it turned out half the fur looked the same" to the director.[6] Filming took place for a total of 102 days, 20 days longer than planned.[11]
Emmerich rejected making the film in an ancient language, deciding that it would not be as emotionally engaging.[12] Dialect coach Brendan Gunn was hired by Emmerich and Kloser to create "a half dozen" languages for the film.[13] Gunn has stated that he collaborated informally with Strait to improvise what the languages would sound like. He also used some local African languages and their dialects, including theOshiwambo language native to Namibia, which can be heard faintly, spoken by the wise blind man.[14]
Thewoolly mammoths in the movie were based on elephants and fossils of mammoths, while thesaber-toothed cat was based on tigers andligers (a lion/tiger hybrid).[15] The sounds made by the saber-toothed cat in the movie are based on the vocalization of tigers and lions.[16]
The world premiere was held on February 10, 2008, atSony Center onPotsdamer Platz in Berlin.[17][18]
The film was a moderate success at the box office. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $35.8 million in 3,410 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking No. 1 at the box office, and grossing over $22 million more than the film in second place,College Road Trip.[19][20] As of 29 April 2008[update], it has grossed approximately $268.6 million worldwide—$94.6 million in the United States and Canada and $174 million in other territories[21]—including $17.2 million in Mexico, $13.1 million in Spain, $11.3 million in the United Kingdom, and $10.8 million in China. This also makes it the first film of 2008 to surpass the $200 million mark.[22]
OnRotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval percentage of 10% based on 147 reviews, with the critics consensus reading: "With attention strictly paid to style instead of substance, or historical accuracy,10,000 B.C. is a visually impressive but narratively flimsy epic."[23] OnMetacritic, the film has a score of 34 out of 100 based on 29 critic reviews, meaning "Generally Unfavorable".[24] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.[25]
Todd McCarthy ofVariety wrote: "Conventional where it should be bold and mild where it should be wild,10,000 BC reps a missed opportunity to present an imaginative vision of a prehistoric moment."[26]Peter Bradshaw ofThe Guardian wrote: "Roland Emmerich's great big CGI blockbuster lumbers along like one of the woolly mammoths that roam across the screen."[27] Caroline White, writing forThe Times, noted that10,000 BC is archaeologically inaccurate and contains many factual errors andanachronisms.[28]
Michael Phillips of theChicago Tribune is one of the few critics who enjoyed the film. He said, "The film's a little bit ofApocalypto, mixed in withIce Age 2, a dash ofQuest for Fire, and sometimes, you're just in the mood for a big old piece of cheese. Folks, here is that cheese on a cracker."[29]
ComposerThomas Wander won aBMI Film Music Award for his work on the film.[30]
The film was released on June 17, 2008, in single-disc editions on DVD andBlu-ray Disc in the United States.Best Buy released a 2-disc limited edition along with the DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases. It was released on July 1, 2008, in the United Kingdom.[31] The film grossed $31,341,721 in DVD sales, bringing its total film gross to $300,414,491.[32]
