Genius

Genius (2016)

Timing: 1:44 (104 min)

6.5/10
713

All about film

Video 4

Photo 15

Actors and characters

Release date

2016-06-10

Country

United Kingdom, United States

Production

Summit Entertainment, Riverstone Pictures, Pinewood Pictures, Desert Wolf Productions, Michael Grandage Company

Genre

History, Drama

Budget

$0

Revenue

$5 681 622

Website

Director

Michael Grandage

Actors

Colin Firth, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Laura Linney, Guy Pearce, Dominic West, Vanessa Kirby, Demetri Goritsas, Harry Attwell, Angela Ashton
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

James Bierman, Michael Grandage, John Logan, Tracey Seaward, James J. Bagley, A. Scott Berg, Tim Bevan, Nik Bower, Tim Christian, Ivan Dunleavy

Operator

Ben Davis

Composer

Adam Cork

Artist

Rebecca White

Audition

Jina Jay

Editing

Chris Dickens
All team (34)

• The biographical book by A. Scott Berg, “Max Perkins: Editor of Genius,” on which the film is based, was published in 1978 and won the prestigious National Book Award two years later.
• Nicole Kidman described Aline Bernstein, the role she played in "Genius," as a woman who was "dark-haired, fiery, and strong." "She should have been born in another era," the actress said. "I like characters like that."
• This is the third joint project for Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman, and the first in which they do not play a married couple. The actors previously starred together in the war drama "Retribution" (Jonathan Teplitzky, 2013) and the thriller "Before I Go to Sleep" (Rowan Joffe, 2013). This is the second joint project for Kidman and Jude Law. In 2003, Kidman and Law starred together in Anthony Minghella's war drama "Cold Mountain."
• To get into the role, Jude Law visited the Thomas Wolfe House (1900-1938), a museum dedicated to the writer, in his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina.
• This is the directorial debut of Michael Grandage in cinema.
• Following "Genius," Nicole Kidman and Michael Grandage collaborated on the play "Photograph 51," which was staged at the "Noël Coward Theatre" in the West End (the western part of central London, where theatrical and concert life is concentrated). Kidman received the "Evening Standard Theatre Award" for her role in the play.
• The distribution company "Roadside Attractions" from Los Angeles, California, planned to premiere the film at the Berlin International Film Festival, which is held annually in February, and to begin theatrical release in July 2016. The company applied the exact same strategy to Bill Condon's film "Mr. Holmes" (2015), which also starred Laura Linney and received high praise from critics and audiences.
• Michael Fassbender was originally slated to play Thomas Wolfe, but due to scheduling conflicts and delays in the film's production, the actor was forced to leave the project. Jude Law took on the role of Wolfe.
• In 2007, the screenplay for the film "Genius" was included in the so-called "Black List" of the most promising, but unrealized, screenplays.
• According to the screenwriter, John Logan, who first read A. Scott Berg's novel in 1983, work on the film continued for 15 years.
• Jude Law and Michael Grandage had previously collaborated on theatrical productions of "Henry V" and "Hamlet".
• In reality, Eileen Bernstein was 20 years older than Thomas Wolfe. Nicole Kidman is only 5 and a half years older than Jude Law.
• The film's cast includes two Academy Award winners (Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth) and two nominees (Jude Law and Laura Linney).
• Throughout the film, Perkins, played by Colin Firth, appears wearing a hat. He removes it only once, when reading the writer’s posthumous letter at the very end of the film.