Cube

Cube (1998)

Timing: 1:30 (90 min)

6.812/10
5093

7.219/10
128653

7.1/10
261000

All about film

Video 2

Photo 48

Actors and characters

Release date

1998-07-11

Country

Canada

Production

Téléfilm Canada, Cube Libre, Feature Film Project, Harold Greenberg Fund, Odeon Films, Ontario Film Development Corporation, Viacom Canada

Genre

Thriller, Science Fiction, Mystery

Budget

$365 000

Revenue

$501 996

Website

Director

Vincenzo Natali

Actors

Nicole de Boer, Nicky Guadagni, Maurice Dean Wint, David Hewlett, Andrew Miller, Wayne Robson, Julian Richings
All actors and roles (7)

Scenario

Producer

Mehra Meh, Betty Orr, Colin Brunton

Operator

Derek Rogers

Composer

Mark Korven

Artist

Anastasia Masaro, Andrew Rucklidge, Greg Sigurdson

Audition

Editing

John Sanders
All team (104)

• The film was shot in 20 days in a sound studio in Toronto. Only one room, measuring 14x14x14 feet, was built for the filming. The color of the room was changed using interchangeable colored panels. The film was shot sequentially for each color because changing the panels took time. Initially, they wanted to use six colors for the room, but due to the small budget, they had to settle for five. There was only one functioning door on set.
• To show support for the Toronto film industry, C.O.R.E. produced all of the film’s digital effects for free.
• Vincenzo Natali also filmed a ‘bonus’ short film showing the Cube from the outside. However, he vowed never to reveal what lies beyond the Cube and later destroyed the short film.
• The hatch handles are pipe threading protectors and are available at any hardware store.
• Vincenzo Natali had been developing the idea for the film for about five years.
• Vincenzo Natali considered the filming a disaster and was very surprised when the film received international recognition: “If someone had told me at the time that 'Cube' would be widely released and have a sequel, I would have fallen off my chair.”
• The characters not only bear the names of prisons but also reflect their characteristics. Kazan (a person suffering from autism) is a disorganized prison. Quentin (a policeman) is known for his brutality. Holloway is a women's prison. Alderson is a prison where isolation is a common punishment. Leavenworth is a prison with a precise set of rules (mathematical precision of Leavenworth).
• In one of the early script drafts, the characters found unnatural alien food. The idea had to be abandoned because it gave too clear an idea of the creators of the Cube.
• The Cube consists of 26x26x26 = 17576 rooms, plus one 'bridge' room.
• On the very first day of filming, the crew encountered a difficult problem – the mechanical hatch connecting the cube's rooms was so heavy that even Maurice Dean Wint, a man of robust build, could not move it. Since the entire script revolved around opening and closing doors, it was decided to film a large dialogue scene. Special effects master William Phillips rebuilt the door structure from materials purchased at a hardware store.
• Leven's assertion about the 'astronomical' task of decomposing three-digit numbers into prime factors is not entirely accurate. In reality, it is quite easy to determine whether a three-digit number is prime. The largest factor that needs to be checked is 31 (since 31² = 961, the next prime factor gives 37² = 1369 – already a four-digit number), and since divisibility by 2, 3, 5, 7, and 11 is very easy to check using known rules, only 6 prime factors (13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31) remain to be checked. Furthermore, powers of prime factors are very easily checked for three-digit numbers: only 11 of them have squares, only 4 have cubes, only 3 have fourth powers, and even higher powers are only present in 2 of them – 2 and 3, which are trivial to check. All this greatly simplifies the task, and there is no 'astronomical' aspect to these calculations.
• The film was shot in 20 days in a recording studio in Toronto. Only one room, measuring 14x14x14 feet, was built for the filming. The room’s color was changed using interchangeable colored panels. The film was shot sequentially for each color, as changing the panels took time. Initially, they wanted to use six colors for the room, but due to the limited budget, they had to settle for five. There was only one functioning door on set.