American Sniper
American Sniper is a 2014 American biographical war drama film directed and co-produced by Clint Eastwood and written and executive-produced by Jason Hall, based on the memoir of the same name by Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice. The film follows the life of Kyle, who became the deadliest marksman in U.S. military history with 255 kills from four tours in the Iraq War, 160 of which were officially confirmed by the Department of Defense. While Kyle was celebrated for his military successes, his tours of duty took a heavy toll on his personal and family life. It stars Bradley Cooper as Kyle and Sienna Miller as his wife Taya, with Luke Grimes, Jake McDorman, Cory Hardrict, Kevin Lacz, Navid Negahban, and Keir O'Donnell in supporting roles.
American Sniper premiered at the American Film Institute Festival on November 11, 2014, and had a limited theatrical release in the United States on December 25, 2014 by Warner Bros. Pictures, followed by a wide release on January 16, 2015. It received generally positive reviews, with praise for Cooper's lead performance and Eastwood's direction, although it also attracted some controversy over its portrayal of both the Iraq War and Kyle himself. The film grossed over $547 million worldwide, making it the 13th-highest-grossing film of 2014, the highest-grossing film with a wide release during the month of January, and Eastwood's highest-grossing film to date.
At the 87th Academy Awards, American Sniper received six nominations, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actor for Cooper, ultimately winning one for Best Sound Editing.
Plot
Growing up in Texas, Chris Kyle is taught by his father how to shoot a rifle and hunt deer. Years later, Chris has become a ranch hand and rodeo cowboy, and returns home early to find his girlfriend in bed with another man. After telling her to leave, he sees news coverage of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings and decides to enlist in the Navy. He qualifies for special training and becomes a sniper with the U.S. Navy SEALs.Chris meets Taya Studebaker at an Irish pub in San Diego, and the two soon marry. He is sent to the Iraq War after the September 11 attacks. His first kills are a woman and a boy who attacked U.S. Marines on patrol with a Russian-made RKG-3 anti-tank grenade. Chris is visibly upset by the experience, but later earns the nickname "Legend" for his many kills.
Assigned to hunt for the al-Qaeda leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Chris interrogates a family whose father offers to lead the SEALs to "The Butcher", al-Zarqawi's second-in-command. The plan goes awry when The Butcher captures the father and his son, killing them while a sniper pins down Chris. This sniper goes by the name Mustafa and is an Olympic Games medalist from Syria. Meanwhile, the insurgents issue a bounty on Chris.
Chris returns home to his wife and the birth of his son. He is distracted by memories of his war experiences and by Taya's concern for them as a couple. She wishes he would focus on his home and family.
Chris leaves for a second tour and is promoted to chief petty officer. Involved in a shootout with The Butcher, he helps kill him. Chris becomes increasingly distant from his family when he returns home to a newborn daughter. On Chris's third tour, Mustafa seriously injures a unit member, Ryan "Biggles" Job, and the unit is evacuated back to base. When they decide to return to the field and continue the mission, another SEAL, Marc Lee, is killed by gunfire.
Guilt compels Chris to undertake a fourth tour, and Taya tells him she may not be there when he returns. Back in Iraq, Chris is shocked to learn Biggles died in surgery to repair the wounds he sustained. Assigned to kill Mustafa, who has been sniping U.S. Army combat engineers building a barricade, Chris's sniper team is placed on a rooftop inside enemy territory.
Chris spots Mustafa and takes him out with a risky long-distance shot at, but this exposes his team's position to numerous armed insurgents. Amid the gunfight and low on ammunition, Chris tearfully calls Taya and tells her he is ready to come home. A sandstorm provides concealment for a chaotic escape in which he is injured and almost left behind.
After Chris gets back stateside, on edge and unable to adjust fully to civilian life, a Veterans Affairs psychiatrist asks if he is haunted by all the things he did in war. When he replies that "all the guys couldn't save" haunt him, the psychiatrist encourages him to help severely wounded veterans in the VA hospital. After that, Chris gradually begins to adjust to home life.
Years later, on February 2, 2013, Chris says goodbye to his wife and family as he leaves in good spirits to spend time with Eddie Ray Routh, a veteran suffering from PTSD, at a shooting range. An on-screen subtitle reveals that Chris was killed that day by Routh, followed by archive footage of crowds standing along the highway for his funeral procession. More are shown attending his memorial service.
Cast
- Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle
- Sienna Miller as Taya
- Luke Grimes as Marc Lee
- Jake McDorman as Ryan Job
- Cory Hardrict as "D" / Dandridge
- Kevin Lacz as himself
- Navid Negahban as Sheikh Al-Obodi
- Keir O'Donnell as Jeff Kyle
- Eric Close as DIA Agent Snead
- Fahim Fazli as Messianic tribal leader
Production
Development
On May 24, 2012, it was announced that Warner Bros. had acquired the rights to the book with Bradley Cooper set to produce and star in the screen adaptation. Cooper had thought of Chris Pratt to play Chris Kyle, but Warner Bros. agreed to buy it only if Cooper would star. In September 2012, David O. Russell said he was interested in directing the film. On February 2, 2013, Chris Kyle was murdered. On May 2, 2013, it was announced that Steven Spielberg would direct. Spielberg had read Kyle's book, though he desired to have a more psychological conflict present in the screenplay so an "enemy sniper" character could serve as the insurgent sharpshooter who was trying to track down and kill Kyle. Spielberg's ideas contributed to the development of a lengthy screenplay approaching 160 pages. Due to Warner Bros.' budget constraints, Spielberg felt he could not bring his vision of the story to the screen. On August 5, 2013, Spielberg dropped out of directing. On August 21, 2013, it was reported that Clint Eastwood would instead direct the film.Casting
On March 14, 2014, Sienna Miller joined the cast. On March 16, 2014, Kyle Gallner was cast, as was Cory Hardrict on March 18, 2014. On March 20, 2014, Navid Negahban, Eric Close, Eric Ladin, Rey Gallegos, and Jake McDorman also joined the cast, as did Luke Grimes and Sam Jaeger on March 25, 2014. Kevin Lacz, a former Navy SEAL, was also cast and served as a technical advisor. Another former Navy SEAL, Joel Lambert, also joined the film, portraying a Delta sniper. On June 3, Max Charles was added to the cast to portray Kyle's son, Colton Kyle.Filming
began on March 31, 2014, in Los Angeles, with additional filming in Morocco. On April 23, the Los Angeles Times reported that ten days of filming set in an Afghan village was set to begin at the Blue Cloud Movie Ranch in the Santa Clarita area. On May 7, shooting of the film was spotted around El Centro; a milk factory was used as the abandoned date factory which insurgents close in on from all directions at the climax of the film. The pier and bar scenes were filmed in Seal Beach, California.Cinematographer Tom Stern shot the film with Arri Alexa XT digital cameras and Panavision C-, E- and G-Series anamorphic lenses. The film is Eastwood's second to be shot digitally, after Jersey Boys.
Music
There is no "Music by" credit on this film. Clint Eastwood, who has composed the scores for most of his films since Mystic River, is credited as the composer of "Taya's Theme". Joseph S. DeBeasi is credited as composer of additional music and as music editor. The film also features the song "Someone Like You" by Van Morrison, which plays during the wedding scene, and "The Funeral" by Ennio Morricone.Reception
Box office
American Sniper grossed $350.2 million in North America and $197.5 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $547.7 million, against a budget of around $59 million. Calculating in all expenses and revenues, Deadline Hollywood estimated that the film made a profit of $243 million, making it the second-most profitable film of 2014 only behind Paramount's Transformers: Age of Extinction. Worldwide, it is the highest-grossing war film of all time and Eastwood's highest-grossing film to date. It is the seventh R-rated film to gross over $500 million.North America
In North America, it was the highest-grossing film of 2014, the highest-grossing war film unadjusted for inflation, the fourth-highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, Warner Bros.' fourth-highest-grossing film, and the eighth-highest-grossing Best Picture nominee film. It became the seventh Warner Bros.' film to earn over $300 million in the U.S. and Canada and the 50th film to reach the mark. It earned as much as the combined earnings of all of the other 2014 Best Picture nominees. On March 8, 2015, it surpassed The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 to become the highest-grossing film of 2014, making it the first R-rated film since Saving Private Ryan and the first non-franchise film since Avatar to top the year-end rankings.American Sniper premiered at the AFI Fest on November 11, 2014, just after a screening of Selma at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles. In North America, the film opened to a limited release on December 25, 2014, playing at four theaters—two in New York, one in Los Angeles, and one in Dallas—and earned $610,000 in its opening weekend at an average of $152,500 per venue debuting at #22. The following week the film earned $676,909 playing at the same number of locations at an average of $169,277 per theater, which is the second-biggest weekend average ever for a live-action movie. American Sniper holds the record for the most entries in the top 20 Top Weekend Theater Averages with 3 entries. It earned a total of $3.4 million from limited release in three weekends.
The film began its wide debut across North American theaters on January 16, 2015. It set an all-time-highest Thursday night opening record for an R-rated drama with $5.3 million. The film topped the box office on its opening day grossing $30.5 million from 3,555 theaters setting January records for both biggest debut opening and single-day gross. In its traditional three-day opening the film earned $89.2 million which was double than expected and broke the record for the largest January opening and the largest winter opening, which is also Eastwood's top opening as a director. The three-day opening is also the biggest opening weekend for a drama film, the second-biggest debut for a Best Picture Oscar nominee, the second-biggest debut for an R-rated film, and the third-biggest for a non-comic book, non-fantasy/sci-fi film. It also set an IMAX January opening and single weekend record with $10.6 million and an R-rated IMAX debut record. It earned $107.2 million during its four-day Martin Luther King weekend setting a record for the biggest R-rated four-day gross.
In its second weekend, the film expanded to 3,705 theaters making it the second-widest launch for an R-rated movie. It grossed an estimated $64.6 million in its second weekend, declining only by 28%—and set the record for the second-best hold ever for a movie opening to more than $85 million and also set the record for the eighth-largest second-weekend gross. In just 10 days of release, the film surpassed Pearl Harbor to become the second-highest-grossing war film in North America. By its second weekend, Box Office Mojo had already reported that the film was on poise to become the highest-grossing film of 2014 in North America, a record that was, at the time held by The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, judging from its gradual decline and strong holdovers. It became the highest-grossing IMAX film of January grossing $18.8 million from 333 IMAX theaters. On Thursday, January 29, 2015–35 days after its initial release, the film surpassed Saving Private Ryan to become the highest-grossing war film in North America, unadjusted for inflation.
By its third weekend of wide release, the film expanded to 3,885 theaters, breaking its own record of being the widest R-rated film ever released. The film topped the box office through its third weekend earning $30.66 million, which is the second-highest Super Bowl weekend gross. After topping the box office for three consecutive weekends, the film was overtaken by The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water in its fourth weekend.