| Cocoon | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster byJohn Alvin | |
| Directed by | Ron Howard |
| Screenplay by | Tom Benedek |
| Story by | David Saperstein |
| Produced by | |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Donald Peterman[1] |
| Edited by | |
| Music by | James Horner |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date |
|
Running time | 117 minutes[3] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $17.5 million[4] |
| Box office | $85.3 million[5] |
Cocoon is a 1985 Americanscience fictioncomedy drama film directed byRon Howard and written by Tom Benedek from a story by David Saperstein.[6] The film starsDon Ameche,Wilford Brimley,Hume Cronyn,Brian Dennehy,Jack Gilford,Steve Guttenberg,Maureen Stapleton,Jessica Tandy,Gwen Verdon,Herta Ware,Tahnee Welch, andLinda Harrison, and follows a group of elderly people rejuvenated by aliens.[7][8]
The film was shot in and aroundSt. Petersburg, Florida, with locations including the St. PetersburgShuffleboard Club, Suncoast Manor Retirement Community, the Coliseum, andSnell Arcade buildings. The film earnedAcademy Awards forBest Supporting Actor (Don Ameche) andBest Visual Effects, and was followed by the sequelCocoon: The Return in 1988, in which almost all of the original cast returned.[9]
About 10,000 years ago, peaceful aliens from the planet Antarea established an outpost on Earth, on Atlantis. When Atlantis sank, 20 aliens were left behind, kept alive in large rock-like cocoons at the bottom of the ocean. A group of Antareans have returned to collect them. Disguising themselves as humans, they rent a house with a swimming pool and charge the water with "life force" to give the cocooned Antareans energy to survive the trip home. They charter a boat, theManta III, from a local captain named Jack, who helps them retrieve the cocoons. Jack spies on Kitty, a beautiful woman from the team who chartered his boat, while she undresses in her cabin, and discovers that she is an alien. After the aliens reveal themselves to him and explain what is going on, he decides to help them.
Next door to the house the Antareans are renting is aretirement home. Three of its residents, Ben, Arthur, and Joe, often trespass to swim in the pool. They absorb some of the life force, making them feel younger and stronger. Eventually caught in the act, they are permitted to use the pool by the Antarean leader, Walter, on the condition that they do not touch the cocoons or tell anybody else about it. Rejuvenated with youthful energy, the three men let the pool's advantages take hold as they were relieved of their ailments.
Kitty and Jack grow closer and decide to make love in the pool. Since she cannot do so in the human manner, she introduces him to the Antarean equivalent, in which she shares her life force energy with him.[10]
The other retirement home residents become suspicious after witnessing Mary, Ben's wife, climb a tree. Their friend Bernie accidentally reveals the pool's secret to the other residents, who rush to the pool to swim in its waters. When Walter finds them damaging one of the cocoons, he ejects them from the property. The Antareans open the damaged cocoon, and the creature inside shares his last moments with Walter. That evening, Bernie finds his wife Rose has stopped breathing and carries her body to the pool to heal her, only to be informed by Walter that the pool no longer works due to the other residents draining the life force in the rush to make themselves young.
Walter explains that the cocoons cannot survive the trip back to Antarea, but will be able to survive on Earth. With the help of Jack, Ben, Arthur, and Joe, the Antareans return the cocoons to the sea. The Antareans offer to take residents of the retirement home with them to Antarea, where they will never grow older and never die. Most of them accept the offer, but Bernie chooses to remain on Earth.
Upon leaving, Ben tells his grandson David that he and Mary are leaving for good. As the residents are leaving, David's mother, Susan, finds out about their destination and drives to the retirement home, where they find the majority of the rooms vacant and contact local authorities.
While the police are searching for the residents in the dark, David notices Jack's boat being started, with the Antareans and the retirement residents aboard. He runs toward it as fast as he can, and as theManta III pulls away from the dock, leaps across the gap, clings to its side, and is pulled aboard by Ben. The boat is chased by the Coast Guard, so with little time left, David says goodbye to Ben and Mary before jumping into the sea. The Coast Guard boats stop to pick him up, giving the others a chance to get away. A thick, mysterious fog appears suddenly, stranding the remaining Coast Guard boats and causing theManta III to disappear from their radar, so they call off the chase.
As the Antarean ship appears overhead, Walter pays Jack for his services and his boat. Jack embraces Kitty for the last time, and they share a kiss. He then says farewell to everyone before jumping into an inflatablelife raft as theManta III rises into the Antarean vessel. Jack watches as it disappears inside the ship and departs.
Back on land, a tearful memorial service is held on a beach for the missing residents. During the sermon, David looks toward the sky and smiles.
Casting for the film and its sequel was overseen by casting directorBeverly McDermott.[11]
Robert Zemeckis was originally hired as director, and spent a year working on it indevelopment. He was at the time directingRomancing the Stone, another film for the same studio,20th Century Fox. Fox executives previewedRomancing the Stone before its release in 1984 and hated it. That, in addition to his two previous directorial efforts,I Wanna Hold Your Hand andUsed Cars, both being commercial failures — though critically acclaimed — led Fox to fire Zemeckis as director ofCocoon. He was replaced withRon Howard.
Location filming took place inSt. Petersburg, Florida, between August 20 and November 1, 1984.[12]
Wilford Brimley was only 49 when he was cast as a senior citizen, and turned 50 during filming; he was as much as 26 years younger than the actors playing the other elderly characters. In order to look the part, Brimley bleached his hair and moustache to turn them gray, and had wrinkles andliver spots drawn on his face.[13]
Speaking about the cast, Howard said in 2025: "I had seven veterans. Among the men, four different working styles. Wilford Brimley was totally improvisational. He was a younger guy and much more independent in his spirit and tone and sensibilities. He ... wanted to be in the moment. AndDon Ameche was an old-school Hollywood guy 'Tell me my lines, show me my mark, and I will deliver what the script suggests should be delivered and do what the director wants.' The other two guys were in between.Jack Gilford was a comedian.Hume Cronyn was a playwright as well as an actor. They could riff with Wilford a little bit. And it elevated the tone of this genre movie. There was an honesty to these guys that I really liked. But Don could not keep up with Wilford’s improvisational vibe. In rehearsal, he tightened up because he didn’t understand how to do that. And the writer and I started slipping him jokes and lines, things he could pretend were ad-libs."[14]
| Cocoon | |
|---|---|
| Film score by | |
| Released | 1985 September 1997 |
| Recorded | 1985 |
| Genre | Soundtrack |
| Length | 44:23 |
| Label | Polydor |
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Filmtracks |   [15] |
Thescore was composed and conducted byJames Horner and performed by theHollywood Studio Symphony. The soundtrack was released twice, throughPolydor Records in 1985 and a reprint through P.E.G. in 1997 and features eleven tracks of score and a vocal track performed byMichael Sembello. Despite the reprint, it is still considered a rarity among soundtrack collectors.[16]
In 2013, an expanded soundtrack consisting of over 62 minutes of Horner's score was released byIntrada Records andFox Music.[17]
Cocoon received mostly positive critical reception. The film holds an 82% "Fresh" rating onRotten Tomatoes from 49 critics. The critical consensus reads: "Though it may be too sentimental for some, Ron Howard's supernatural tale of eternal youth is gentle and heartwarming, touching on poignant issues of age in the process".[18]Metacritic gave the film a score of 65 based on 18 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[19]
The film was also a box office hit, making over $76 million in North America where it became the sixth highest-grossing film of 1985.[20]
Janet Maslin ofThe New York Times wrote that "Mr. Howard brings a real sweetness to his subject, as does the film's fine cast of veteran stars; he has also givenCocoon the bright, expansive look of a hot-weather hit. And even when the film begins to falter, as it does in its latter sections, Mr. Howard's touch remains reasonably steady. He does the most he can with material that, after an immensely promising opening, heads into the predictable territory of Spielberg-inspired beatific science fiction".[21]Variety called it "a fountain of youth fable, which imaginatively melds galaxy fantasy with the lives of aging mortals in a Florida retirement home [and] weaves a mesmerizing tale".[22]
Wilford Brimley's age during the production and release of the film has been the subject of a popular Internetmeme concerning aging. Brimley, who was only 50 years old when the film was released, was relatively young to play a senior citizen. WhenTom Cruise turned 50 in 2012, many juxtaposed his role in the ongoingMission: Impossible franchise to Brimley's role inCocoon, noting that Cruise was continuing to headline a major action franchise at the same age Brimley played an aging senior (coincidentally, both Cruise and Brimley starred together inThe Firm in 1993). This has resulted in the Brimley/Cocoon line meme, in which an actor who reaches 18,530 days of age (the exact age Brimley was whenCocoon premiered) has crossed it. A 2018 article inThe New Yorker by Ian Crouch argued that the meme highlighted how perceptions of aging have changed since the release ofCocoon.[32]