Back مدينة الظلام Arabic Qaranlıq şəhər (film, 1998) Azerbaijani Dark City Catalan Dark City Welsh Dark City German Σκοτεινή Πόλη (ταινία) Greek Dark City Spanish Dark City (1998ko filma) Basque شهر تاریک (فیلم ۱۹۹۸) Persian Dark City Finnish

Dark City (1998 film)

Dark City
A black poster. Above reads the lines: "Rufus Sewell", "Kiefer Sutherland", "Jennifer Connelly", "and William Hurt". In the center, against a black background, a man wearing a blue jacket is rested against an upright clock with Roman numerals as big as him; the setup cast in a blue tint. His arms are outspread, and his head is tilted back with his mouth agape. Behind the man and the clock is a dark city skyline. Below them is the tagline, "They built the city to see what makes us tick. Last night one of us went off." Below the tagline is the film title, "Dark City".
Theatrical release poster
Directed byAlex Proyas
Screenplay by
Story byAlex Proyas
Produced by
  • Andrew Mason
  • Alex Proyas
Starring
CinematographyDariusz Wolski
Edited byDov Hoenig
Music byTrevor Jones
Production
company
Mystery Clock Cinema
Distributed byNew Line Cinema
Release date
  • February 27, 1998 (1998-02-27)
Running time
100 minutes[1]
Countries
  • United States
  • Australia
LanguageEnglish
Budget$27 million[2]
Box office$27.2 million[3]

Dark City is a 1998 tech noir film directed by Alex Proyas, and starring Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, Richard O'Brien, and Ian Richardson. The screenplay was written by Proyas, Lem Dobbs, and David S. Goyer. In the film, Sewell plays an amnesiac man who, finding himself suspected of murder, attempts to discover his true identity and clear his name while on the run from the police and a mysterious group known as the "Strangers".[4]

Primarily shot at Fox Studios Australia, the film was jointly produced by New Line Cinema and Proyas' production company Mystery Clock Cinema, and distributed by the former for theatrical release. It premiered in the United States on 27 February 1998 and received generally positive critiques, but it was a box-office bomb. Roger Ebert, in particular, supported the film, appreciating its art direction, set design, cinematography, special effects, and imagination, and even recorded an audio commentary for the film's home video release.

The film was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and six Saturn Awards. Some critics later noted Dark City's similarities to and influence on the Matrix film series, whose first installment came out a year later,[5][6][7] and the film is now widely considered a sci-fi cult classic.[8][9][10][11]

Concerned that audiences would not understand the film, New Line asked Proyas to add an explanatory voice-over to the introduction, and he complied. When a director's cut of the film was released in 2008, among the changes was the removal of the opening narration.

  1. ^ "Dark City". British Board of Film Classification. Retrieved 3 January 2017.
  2. ^ "Dark City (1998) - Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
  3. ^ "Dark City (1998)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 29 August 2010.
  4. ^ Helms, Michael (May 1998). "Dark City: Interview with Andrew Mason and Alex Proyas". Cinema Papers (124). North Melbourne: Cinema Papers Pty Ltd.: 18–21. ISSN 0311-3639.
  5. ^ Ebert, Roger (31 March 1999). "The Matrix". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved 18 September 2015.
  6. ^ "Dark City vs The Matrix". RetroJunk. 17 August 2015. Retrieved 18 September 2015.
  7. ^ Tyridal, Simon (28 January 2005). "Matrix City: A Photographic Comparison of The Matrix and Dark City". ElectroLund. Retrieved 18 September 2015.
  8. ^ "Dark City director Alex Proyas reportedly tuning up for new series based on the 1998 sci-fi cult classic". SYFY Official Site. 12 August 2021. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  9. ^ "Dark City, the sci-fi cult classic, is being made into a TV series". Shortlist. 13 August 2021. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  10. ^ "The Best Movie You Never Saw: Dark City". JoBlo. 15 April 2020. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  11. ^ "Dark City Series Is in Development with Director Alex Proyas". MovieWeb. 13 August 2021. Retrieved 20 March 2022.

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