Wimbledon

Wimbledon (2004)

Timing: 1:38 (98 min)

6.201/10
946

7.124/10
32037

6.4/10
69000

All about film

Video 2

Photo 18

Actors and characters

Release date

2004-09-13

Country

France, United Kingdom

Production

Universal Pictures, StudioCanal, Working Title Films, Inside Track, Working Title Films

Genre

Comedy, Romance

Budget

$31 000 000

Revenue

$40 701 767

Website

Director

Richard Loncraine

Actors

Kirsten Dunst, Paul Bettany, Sam Neill, Jon Favreau, Bernard Hill, Eleanor Bron, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Austin Nichols, Robert Lindsay, James McAvoy
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Adam Brooks, Jennifer Flackett

Producer

Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Liza Chasin, Mary Richards, Debra Hayward, David Livingstone

Operator

Darius Khondji

Composer

Ed Shearmur

Artist

Audition

Irene Lamb

Editing

Humphrey Dixon
All team (99)

• The film was shot during the 2003 Wimbledon Championships. The actors went onto the court at the beginning or end of a match, as if they were competitors. The officials and spectators in these scenes were actually officials and spectators at the tournament, not invited extras. This was the only time in the more than century-long history of Wimbledon that such a thing was allowed.
• Initially, the lead male role was intended for Hugh Grant.
• The lead female role could have gone to Reese Witherspoon.
• Ian Somerhalder was considered for the role of Jake Hammond, but the director preferred another candidate.
• Maria Sharapova could have played the role of one of Kirsten Dunst's rivals, but it was decided against because they looked too much alike from a distance.
• Klaus Badelt was supposed to be the composer for the film and had already started working, but problems with his other project, "Catwoman (2004)", led to him having to give way to Ed Shermur.
• To better suit her role, Kirsten Dunst had to undergo serious physical training.
• Getting the actors to play tennis, at least convincingly, turned out to be much more difficult than expected. Ultimately, it was decided that the actors would mostly just mimic hitting the ball, and the ball itself would be added later using computer graphics. However, the actors performed the serves themselves with a real tennis ball.
• Scenes showing crowds gathered at the Wimbledon entrance were actually filmed at the entrance to London Zoo, simply because the filmmakers thought it looked more interesting there.
• Scenes on the seafront in the English town of Brighton were filmed between September 1st and 6th, 2003, with 250 local residents used as extras.
• The tennis consultant and actor coach was the famous Australian tennis player of the 80s, Pat Cash, who won the Wimbledon tournament in 1987, defeating Ivan Lendl in the final.
• The film features 9 former and current professional tennis players. Five of them (Vikas Pun, Betty Sekulovski, Murphy Jensen, Alan Jones, and Rebecca Dandeniya) played the roles of tennis players – tournament participants. The other four (John McEnroe, Chris Evert, Mary Carillo, and John Barrett) appear as themselves – sports commentators at the tournament. Notably, Chris Evert and John McEnroe were themselves Wimbledon tournament winners.
• Filming of the movie began on June 28th, 2003, at Wimbledon and other locations in the UK, with a budget of $35 million, immediately after Kirsten Dunst finished filming 'Spider-Man 2'. Filming wrapped up in early autumn of the same year. The original planned start date for filming was July 2002.
• The working title of the film was "Two Weeks in Love".
• This film was dedicated to Mark McCormack, a prominent figure in American sports.
• The story of Peter Colt in the film largely resembles the performance of the famous Croatian tennis player Goran Ivanišević at the 2001 Wimbledon tournament, which he won as the 125th ranked player in the world after receiving a wildcard from the organizers.