10,000 BC (film)

10,000 BC
Promotional poster
Directed by	Roland Emmerich
Written by	Harald Kloser Roland Emmerich
Produced by	Michael Wimer Roland Emmerich
Starring	Steven Strait Camilla Belle Cliff Curtis
Narrated by	Omar Sharif
Music by	Harald Kloser Thomas Wander
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release dates	March 6 2008 (D, AUS) March 7, 2008 (USA) March 14, 2008 (UK)
Running time	109 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$105,000,000
Box office	$138,802,574

10,000 BC is a 2008 American film set in the prehistoric era directed by Roland Emmerich and starring Camilla Belle and Steven Strait. The World Premiere of the movie was on February 26, 2008 at the CineStar theater in Berlin's Potsdamer Platz. The cinema release was on March 6, 2008.

Plot

The film follows D'Leh (Steven Strait), a young mammoth hunter of the Yagahl Tribe who is the son of a hunter that abandoned the village. It was also at that time that D'Leh witnessed the mysterious arrival of Evolet (Camilla Belle), a young girl with bright blue eyes who prompts a prophecy from the wise old woman of the tribe, Old Mother (Mona Hammond) of "four legged demons" (horses) coming to their land during the last Mammoth hunt to occur years later. D'Leh falls in love with Evolet and promises that she will always be in his heart.

Several years later, the Yagahl tribe is expecting the arrival of a mammoth herd to help them survive the winter. According to Tic'Tic (Cliff Curtis), D'Leh's trainer and a friend of D'Leh's father, whoever kills the lead male of the herd, will inherit the legendary White Spear of the North, and Evolet as well. When the mammoth herd arrives, the hunters try to capture the biggest one, but it manages to escape. D'Leh is the only one that follows him and the mammoth ends up dead when it accidentally falls on top of D'Leh's spear. Since nobody sees this, other than Tic'Tic, D'Leh is assumed to be the leader and the winner of Evolet's love. However, Tic'Tic is reluctant to recognize D'Leh. Being honest with what happened, D'Leh returns the White Spear.

At night, a group of raiders come in and kidnap several of Yagahl, including Evolet. The warlord leader takes a liking towards her. His main henchman, One Eye, believes that the girl is a witch who has seduced his master (his later actions hint that he might possibly be attracted to the girl as well). D'Leh decides to rescue Evolet and the rest of the Yagahl. Tic'Tic, Ka'Ren, and young Baku, whose mother was killed by One-Eye during the attack, join him. During their travels to save their people, with Ka'Ren and Baku captured by the raiders, D'Leh falls into a trap-hole where he finds a trapped Spear-Tooth. Despite being scared, D'Leh saves the cat by letting it free. D'Leh and Tic'Tic keep on walking through the desert finding the village of the Naku tribe. Just when the Naku are about to attack them, the Spear-Tooth appears, and D'Leh reluctantly confronts it. Recognizing D'Leh as the one who saved it earlier, the feline spares him and protects him and Tic'Tic from the tribe. The tribe acknowledges D'Leh as the fulfiller of the prophecy: a man who speaks to the Spear-Tooth would become savior. D'Leh also learns the truth behind his father from Nakudu, leader of the Naku who learned the Yagahl's words from his father.

Other tribes of the area, on being convinced that the prophecy had been fulfilled, join them. D'Leh learns that Evolet and the others are being taken to the "Mountain of the gods" where they would be forced to build altars and pyramids for a mysterious god-like figure. Determined to rescue Evolet and the rest of his tribesmen (and all the other slaves), D'Leh and his friends organize an attack. D'Leh kills the tyrant god, leaving all spectators awestruck. Evolet frees herself by stabbing the warlord with an arrow. The dying warlord, out of spite, shoots an arrow at Evolet from behind killing her. However, she comes back to life to fulfill the prophecy of Old Mother, who revives her with her last breath. Nakudu, fulfilling the wishes of D'Leh's father, gives him seeds to grow and eat from. D'Leh and the rest of the Yagahl bid farewell to the Naku and return to their village. The film ends as D'Leh and Evolet observe the growth of the seedlings.

Cast

• Steven Strait as D'Leh, a mammoth hunter. D'Leh spelled backwards is "held", the german word for Hero.
• Camilla Belle as Evolet, D'Leh's love and the survivor of a different tribe that was killed by the "four legged demons". While kidnapped, her hand was whipped, forming a scar in the shape of the "hunter"
• Cliff Curtis as Tic Tic, D'Leh's mentor.
• Joel Virgel as Nakudu, leader of the Naku tribe.
• Affif Ben Badra as Warlord, leader of the "four legged demons" who falls in love with Evolet.
• Mo Zinal as Ka'Ren
• Nathanael Baring as Baku
• Mona Hammond as Old Mother, the Yagahl wise old woman.
• Marco Khan as One-Eye, Warlord's main henchman.
• Reece Ritchie as Moha
• Joel Fry as Lu'kibu
• Kristian Beazley as D'Leh's father.
• Junior Oliphant as Tudu, Nakudu's son.
• Boubacar Badaine as Quina, leader of another tribe.
• Joe Vaz as Chief Of Guards
• Tim Barlow as the Pyramid God. The last of the three surviving Atlanteans, he is a tyrant who sought to enslave all people on earth. The Pyramid God covers his body to hide signs of his aging from his followers to have think of him as divine. He also fears the "hunter", who is said to kill him.
• Omar Sharif as Narrator
• Elbrus Ourtaev Stunt Man, also is horse man, who was taken by the bird

Casting process

Emmerich opened casting sessions in late October 2005. In February 2006, Camilla Belle and Steven Strait were announced to star in the film, with Strait as the mammoth hunter and Belle as his love. Emmerich felt that casting well known actors would distract from the realistic feel of the prehistoric setting. "If like, Jake Gyllenhaal turned up in a movie like this, everybody would be, 'What's that?'", he explained. Unknown casting also helped keep the film's budget down.

Production

Director Roland Emmerich and composer Harald Kloser originally penned a script for 10,000 BC. When the project received the greenlight from Columbia Pictures, screenwriter John Orloff began work on a new draft of the original script. Columbia Pictures, under Sony Pictures Entertainment, dropped the project due to a busy release calendar, and Warner Bros. picked up the project in Sony's vacancy. The script went through a second revision with Matthew Sand and a final revision with Robert Rodat. Emmerich rejected making the film in an ancient language (similar to The Passion of the Christ or Apocalypto), feeling it would not be as emotionally engaging.

Production began in spring 2006 in South Africa and Namibia. Location filming also took place in southern New Zealand and Thailand. Before shooting began, the production had spent eighteen months on research and development for the computer generated imagery. Two companies recreated prehistoric animals. To cut time (it was taking sixteen hours to render a single frame) 50% of the CGI models' fur was removed, as "it turned out half the fur looked the same" to the director.

Animals featured

• Saber-toothed cat (refered as "spear tooth"; presumably Smilodon or Homotherium)
• Phorusrhacidae (originally they were thought to had become extinct in the ice age, but it seems that they died out at least 1.8 million years ago)
• Mammoth (refered as "mannack")
• Gazelle (briefly seen in the savanna)
• Vulture (presumably Teratornis)

Critical reception

Critics have given the film mostly negative reviews. As of March 14 2008, the review aggregator at Rotten Tomatoes has reported that 9% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 83 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 37 out of 100, based on 25 reviews.

Influences of other works

Similarities to One Million Years B.C. have been pointed out by some critics. Glenn Whipp of the Los Angeles Daily News draws numerous comparisons between 10,000 BC and other films in the prehistoric film genre, especially One Million Years B.C. and Apocalypto

At the 2008 Wondercon, Emmerich mentioned the fiction of Robert E. Howard as a primary influence for the film's setting, as well as his love for Quest for Fire and the book Fingerprints of the Gods.

Box office performance

In its opening weekend, the film grossed $35.8 million in 3,410 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #1 at the box office — and grossing over $22 million more than the film in second place, College Road Trip. As of March 17, 2008, the film has grossed $61,577,423 in the domestically and $74,400,000 internationally, for a worldwide total of $135,977,423.

Historical Inaccuracies

Woolly mammoths were not, in fact, used to build pyramids. Woolly mammoths weren't even found in the desert. They wouldn't need to be woolly if that were the case. And there weren't any pyramids in Egypt until 2,500 B.C or so. Also, horses weren't domesticated until six thousand years later than the film's setting, but soldiers on horseback are featured. The saber tooth cat is grossly oversized!There is no place on Earth in which one can cross, on foot, in about 5 days, mountain, jungle, desert and a plethora of landscapes. And tribes were not multi-ethnic 12,000 years ago, and people did not use dreadlocks, nor mascara.[1]

External links

• Official site and trailer
• 10,000 BC at IMDb
• 10,000 BC at Rotten Tomatoes
• 10,000 BC at Metacritic
• 10,000 BC at Box Office Mojo
• Template:Amg movie