Phone Booth (film)

In the 1960s, Larry Cohen pitched Alfred Hitchcock an idea for a film which took place in real time, entirely within the confines of a telephone booth. Hitchcock liked the idea, but the project did not move forward, because the two men were unable to devise a plot which explained why the action had to be restricted to the one location.[2] Cohen recalled that Hitchcock would ask him if he had a solution to the problem when they periodically met over the following years, but it was not until the late 1990s, some two decades after Hitchcock's death, when he came up with the answer of a sniper forcing the protagonist to remain within the phone booth, and was able to write a script.[2]

Creative Artists Agency signed a contract with Cohen and the script appealed to several A-list actors, such as Tom Cruise, Will Smith, Mel Gibson, Robin Williams, Anthony Hopkins, and Nicolas Cage; directors placed in contention included Gibson, Steven Spielberg, the Hughes brothers, and Michael Bay. According to Cohen, Bay was removed from consideration after the first question he asked about the script was, "OK, how do we get this thing out of the damn telephone booth?"[2] Eventually, Joel Schumacher, who had been considered early in development, was brought back on to direct the film. Jim Carrey was originally cast as Stu Shepard, but he dropped out. Schumacher said: "We were going to shoot it that summer and he was fitted for the suit. But I got a call from Jim one night and told me he had cold feet. He really didn't feel comfortable with it. Actors never give up their role. If an actor gives up a part then it's not right for them."[3]

The principal photography on the film was completed in ten days, with an additional two days of establishing shots, pickups, and re-shoots. This accelerated filming schedule was aided by the adoption of French hours, a work schedule that skips the typical one-hour production shutdown for lunch break, in exchange for making food available all throughout the shooting day.[4]

The filming was done with Ron Eldard cast in the role of The Caller. During filming, Eldard delivered his performance from the window of a building across the street from the phone booth Farrell was in. The role was recast with Kiefer Sutherland after screenwriter Cohen told director Schumacher that Eldard's "voice lacked the mesmerizing tone" that Cohen wanted. Sutherland rerecorded all of The Caller's lines for use in the final film.[2]

This was costume designer Daniel Orlandi's second feature with Joel Schumacher, having previously worked together on Flawless. According to him, Dolce & Gabbana created the suit and shirt worn by Colin Farrell. Though the fashion house was tasked with making additional suit copies for filming, they unfortunately would not arrive until the last day of shooting. Thankfully, the film was shot chronologically and thus the costume could sustain damage without slowing down production. Orlandi was able to keep one of the suit copies for himself as he and Farrell were the same size.[5]

The film is set in real time, so the timespan in which the film takes place is as long as it takes to watch it, much like the television series 24, which also stars Kiefer Sutherland. Like 24, it also uses split screens. Although the film is set in New York City, it was filmed in front of what is now the CB1 Gallery in downtown Los Angeles, in November 2000. This is made evident by the LACMTA buses periodically driving by. The exact location of the phone booth in the film is the corner of West 5th Street and Frank Court, given away by the black gate in the background.

The film premiered on September 10, 2002, at the Toronto International Film Festival.[6] It was originally due to be released in the United States on November 15 of that year. However, in October 2002, the Beltway sniper attacks occurred in the Washington, D.C., area, prompting 20th Century Fox to delay the release of the film to April 5, 2003.[7]

It was released on VHS and DVD on July 8, 2003.

The film grossed $46.5 million in the United States of America and $51.3 million internationally for a total gross of $97.8 million, from a $13 million production budget.[1]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 72% based on 188 reviews, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Quick pacing and Farrell's performance help make Phone Booth a tense nail-biter."[8] At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100 based on 35 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[9] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on scale of A+ to F.[10]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three out of four stars, and said of Sutherland's performance, "if the voice doesn't work, neither does the movie. It does."[11] Todd McCarthy of Variety magazine criticized the film for not having enough material even for its relatively short length, and wrote: "Gussied up with a host of filmmaking tricks in an attempt to keep things lively, this intensely acted little exercise just doesn't have enough going for it, with the exception of gradually growing interest in lead Colin Farrell."[12]