Oscars: 5 things you didn't know about Arrival
Fascinating facts about the Canadian-made sci-fi thriller
The Oscars are right around the corner, and to mark the occasion, we've gathered five fascinating facts about each of this year's Academy Award best picture nominees.
Here they are for Denis Villeneuve's Arrival, which is nominated for eight Oscars including best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay, best cinematography and best sound editing.
1. The film is adapted from a short story by Ted Chiang called Story of Your Life, but Canadian director Denis Villeneuve thought the title sounded too much like a romantic comedy and began looking for a new name. Villeneuve went through hundreds of possible titles, but ended up going with one of the first a colleague suggested.
2. In earlier versions, the film had a different ending. "In earlier versions they were leaving sort of the blueprints to an interstellar ship, like an ark of sorts. And then Chris Nolan's Interstellar came out and all of us got together and said, 'Well this doesn't quite work now,'" recalled screenwriter Eric Heisserer with a laugh. "So we focused more on what we had there in front of us, which was the power of their language."
3. Three linguists at McGill university were consulted for the script. They helped to construct the alien language; their offices were also pilfered for props. "They took pictures of everything, they borrowed all the books off my bookshelf, they borrowed my colleague's books, also, because I didn't have enough," professor Jessica Coon, who also worked with lead actress Amy Adams, said in an interview. "And then they took pictures from the blackboards."
4. In August 2016, Paramount pictures released a series of promotional posters, one of which featured a UFO hovering over the Hong Kong skyline — which for some reason included Shanghai's Oriental Pearl Tower. The gaffe drew anger on Hong Kong social media, and the posters were removed.
5. When actor Jeremy Renner saw the film, he found it overwhelming. "It emotionally wrecked me," he said in an interview. "I don't know if I'll watch it again."
Read fascinating facts about the other best picture nominees here:
From Arrival to La La Land: fascinating facts about this year's best picture Oscar nominees
— Jennifer Van Evra, q digital staff