Flash of Genius (film)

Flash of Genius
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Marc Abraham
Written by	Philip Railsback
Based on	"The Flash of Genius" by John Seabrook
Produced by	Gary Barber Roger Birnbaum Michael Lieber
Starring	Greg Kinnear Lauren Graham Dermot Mulroney
Cinematography	Dante Spinotti
Edited by	Jill Savitt
Music by	Aaron Zigman
Production companies	Spyglass Entertainment Strike Entertainment
Distributed by	Universal Pictures (North America, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy and Spain) Spyglass International (international)
Release date	October 3, 2008 (2008-10-03)
Running time	119 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$20 million
Box office	$4.8 million[1]

Flash of Genius is a 2008 American biographical drama film directed by Marc Abraham. Philip Railsback wrote the screenplay based on a 1993 New Yorker article by John Seabrook.^[2] The story focuses on Robert Kearns (played by Greg Kinnear) and his legal battle against the Ford Motor Company after they developed an intermittent windshield wiper based on ideas the inventor had patented. The film's title comes from the phrase "flash of genius" (like "stroke of genius"), which is patent law terminology that was in effect from 1941 to 1952, although Kearns's patent was filed in 1964; it held that the inventive act must come into the mind of an inventor as a kind of epiphany, and not as the result of tinkering.

The film opened on 1,098 screens in the United States on October 3, 2008, and earned $2.2 million on its opening weekend. It remained in theaters for only three weeks, and eventually grossed only $4.6 million worldwide, coming up short against its $20 million budget.^[1]