About 65 – Film

65 Film

65 is a 2023 American science fiction film written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. Adam Driver stars as a space pilot who crashes on an unknown planet and attempts to escape while surviving with a young girl, played by Ariana Greenblatt. Beck and Woods produced with Sam Raimi, Deborah Liebling, and Zainab Azizi.

65 was released by Sony Pictures Releasing on March 10, 2023 and grossed $60 million worldwide against a production budget of $45 million. The film received mainly mixed reviews from critics.

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STORY

65,000,000 years ago, on the planet Somaris, pilot Mills is convinced by his wife that he should take on a two-year space expedition to earn the money needed to treat their daughter Nevine’s illness. During the journey, his spaceship, the Zoic, is hit by a mass of asteroids and crash-lands on an alien planet, which unbeknownst to him, is actually Earth. With his ship damaged beyond repair, he finds that his passengers have been killed and contemplates suicide until he finds a lone survivor, a young girl named Koa. Mills sends a distress beacon for rescue and decides to take care of Koa. However, they have difficulty communicating due to differing languages and a broken translator.

Mills later discovers a functioning escape shuttle from the Zoic has landed on top of a mountain. To encourage Koa to follow him, Mills lies about her family being atop the mountain, when in reality they perished in the crash. The pair quickly realize the planet is home to dangerous and aggressive alien creatures, which turn out to be Earth’s dinosaurs. As Mills protects Koa, they begin to bond.

Koa watches several video messages sent by Nevine. The two are attacked by a large carnivorous reptile that resembles a cross between a theropod and a rauisuchid, though Mills shoots it in the eye which only enrages it, forcing Koa and Mills to retreat further into a cave. After a rockfall separates them, Mills is attacked by an Oviraptor and Koa is attacked by a raptor-like creature which she traps in a fallen tree log; she uses bombs Mills had given her to kill the dinosaur. Mills kills the Oviraptor and escapes the cave, but falls into quicksand while searching for Koa. Koa rescues him and they continue up the mountain. Mills discovers that a huge asteroid, the same one whose debris his ship crashed into, will strike Earth in less than 12 hours.

The two reach the escape shuttle, but Koa is angry when she discovers that Mills lied to her. Mills opens up to Koa about losing Nevine, who had died of her illness while he was away, and promises to protect her. Upon learning rescue is on the way, the two board the escape shuttle, but the asteroid’s debris causes it to fall down the mountain. A pair of marauding Tyrannosaurus rex harass Mills and Koa, though Mills successfully kills both of them. Suddenly, the same quadruped predator Mills had partially blinded earlier also attacks. Mills manages to lure it toward a large geyser field while Koa stabs it in its remaining good eye with a large dinosaur tooth that she coated in poison berries earlier, blinding it. The now blind carnivore then stumbles headfirst into a boiling hot geyser and is burned to death. The pair escapes just in time as the asteroid strikes Earth, causing a cataclysmic event and the extinction of the dinosaurs. With the pod set to meet up with a rescue vessel, the two relax and fly off into the stars.

In closing titles, the evolution of Earth is shown, at the spot where Mills and Koa left, through an ice age until the present day.

CAST

Adam Driver as Mills
Ariana Greenblatt as Koa
Chloe Coleman as Nevine
Nika King as Nevine’s mom

PRODUCTION

In September 2020, Adam Driver signed on to star in the film, to be produced, written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods; Sam Raimi would co-produce with Zainab Azizi and Debbie Liebling. Two months later, Ariana Greenblatt joined the cast. In December 2020, Chloe Coleman joined the cast.

Principal photography was expected to begin on November 16, 2020, in New Orleans, eventually beginning by December 7, 2020. Filming also occurred in the Kisatchie National Forest in Vernon Parish, Louisiana in January 2021, being halfway into production by January 16, wrapping up on February 21, 2021. Additionally, several locations in Oregon were used for filming, including Meyer’s Creek Beach in Gold Beach, Coos Bay, Whaleshead Beach in Brookings, Agness and Elk Creek Falls.

The visual effects were created by Framestore, and Ghost VFX with Chris Harvey serving as a visual effects supervisor. Shot with a budget of $57 million, the final cost of the film was $45 million after tax rebates. Scroggins Aviation Mockup & Effects was contracted by Sony to build a spacecraft “Escape Vessel” and other set props for the mother spacecraft in the film.

Koa speaks a fictional alien language that was invented just for the movie.