The Phantom Full Movie 1996
Charise Scrivner
The Phantom is a 1996 superhero film directed by Simon Wincer. Based on Lee Falk's comic strip The Phantom by King Features, the film stars Billy Zane as a seemingly immortal crimefighter and his battle against all forms of evil. The Phantom also stars Treat Williams, Kristy Swanson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, James Remar and Patrick McGoohan.
The Phantom was released on June 7, 1996, and received mixed reviews from film critics. Despite financial failure in its theatrical release, the film has enjoyed success on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray, and has developed a cult following.[4][better source needed]
In the early 16th century, a young boy helplessly witnesses his father killed by the evil Kabai Sengh, the ruthless pirate leader of the Sengh Brotherhood, who attacked their ship. The boy jumps overboard and is washed ashore on Bengalla, an island where local tribesmen find him and take him to their village. There he is given the Skull Ring, swears to devote his life to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, and as an adult, adopts the identity of "The Phantom", a masked avenger. The role of The Phantom is passed on from father to son through 400 years, leading people to believe in a single, immortal figure.
In 1938, Kit Walker, the 21st Phantom, finds Quill leading a group of grave robbers in the jungle. They are searching a burial place for one of the Skulls of Touganda, which grants its owner a tremendously destructive power. The Phantom saves the native boy they kidnapped to be their guide and captures Quill's men, leaving them for the Jungle Patrol to pick up. Revealed to be a Sengh Brotherhood member and the man who killed Kit's father - whose ghost frequently appears to give Kit advice - Quill flees with the Skull and returns to the United States.
In New York City, Kit's college ex-girlfriend, Diana Palmer, is a frequent traveler whose uncle, Dave Palmer, is the famous owner of the World Tribune newspaper. The paper has been investigating power-hungry businessman Xander Drax, a shady character with a reputation for dealing with criminals. Palmer has uncovered Drax's connection to a mysterious spider web symbol, which he traces back to the Bengalla Jungle. He sends Diana to investigate but makes the mistake of telling New York's corrupt police commissioner, who is allied with Drax, of Diana's trip. Drax's female air pirates led by femme fatale, Sala, hijack the plane; Diana is abducted and taken to their waterfront base in Bengalla. Having been informed of Diana's abduction by the Jungle Patrol's captain, Phillip Horton, the Phantom rescues her and escapes from Quill and his men to his headquarters, the Skull Cave.
In New York, now dressed as his civilian self, Kit meets with David Palmer at the World Tribune and once again meets with Diana, who has mixed feelings about him since his sudden disappearance several years before. Diana's would-be suitor Jimmy Wells mentions he had seen one of the skulls in the Museum of World History, so Kit and Diana hurry there. Drax and his men capture them, steal the second Skull and unite it with the first, revealing the location of the third Skull on an uncharted island in the Andaman Sea, known as the Devil's Vortex. Kit manages to escape and, as the Phantom, evades the police outside the museum. Meanwhile, after Sala reveals that Diana is the Phantom's girlfriend, she flies Drax, Quill, and Diana to the Devil's Vortex, not knowing that the Phantom has managed to hitch a ride on one of the plane's landing pontoons.
Returning to Bengalla, Diana reveals to the Phantom that she has figured out his secret and double identity. Kit removes his mask, telling her that he can only disclose all of his secrets to one person, the woman he intends to marry, but she leaves again for New York. Kit's father laments his son's failure to pursue Diana but states that she will return to the Phantom's jungle, and Kit, one day.
Rumours of a Phantom film adaptation had first started to circulate when director Sergio Leone expressed his interest in the property in an interview. Leone had started to write a script and scout locations for his proposed film version of the Phantom, which he planned to be followed by an adaptation of Lee Falk's other comic-strip hero, Mandrake the Magician.[5] The second project was never finalized.
Joe Dante was originally attached to direct a Phantom film for Paramount Pictures in the early 1990s, and he developed a draft of the script together with Jeffrey Boam. Dante and Boam's script was originally tongue-in-cheek in tone and the climax included a winged demon. When Paramount pushed the film back a year, Dante left for other commitments, and eventually ended up being credited as one of the executive producers. According to Dante:
Simon Wincer, who had been a fan of the character since childhood, got the job of director.[citation needed] When he traveled to Los Angeles to meet with Paramount executives, he discovered that they intended to release the film in July 1996.[citation needed] The Phantom was originally intended to be filmed in Hawaii, and the production schedule would go over budget by $10 million. Wincer decided to film it in New York City, Thailand and his native Australia, reducing the budget by $12 million as a result.[7]
Wincer then cast Billy Zane, who had won praise for his work as a psychopath in Dead Calm, as the Phantom. Zane, a huge fan of the comic strip after being introduced to it on the set of Dead Calm,[8] won the part after competition from Bruce Campbell and New Zealand actor Kevin Smith. After his casting, he spent over a year and a half to get the right muscular look of the Phantom.[9] He also studied the character's body language in comic strip artwork, carefully imitating it in his performance.[10]
Filming began on October 3, 1995, in Los Angeles at Greystone Park. For the exterior of the Palmers' English-style manor the mansion of Playboy magazine's Hugh Hefner, a longtime fan of the Phantom, was used.[7][11]
The Los Angeles Zoo in Griffith Park doubled for New York City's Central Park Zoo, the setting for a chase sequence.[7] Shooting continued on Hollywood studio backlot streets that recreated the 1938 version of New York City. Over fifty vintage cars were used on the streets, and four hundred extras costumed in authentic period clothing were employed.[11]
In October, the production traveled to Thailand for seven weeks of filming there, with the country doubling as the Phantom's fictional home country Bengalla.[12] Action scenes such as the Phantom saving a boy from a collapsing rope bridge were filmed here. Production designer Paul Peters changed a deserted warehouse in the town Krabi into a large sound stage, where the Phantom's Skull Cave abode was erected, including his Chronicle Chamber, vault, and radio and treasure rooms.
In December, the crew traveled to Australia, where production occupied eight sound stages at the Village Roadshow Studios in Brisbane, Queensland.[7][11] At Stage 5, the Singh Pirates Cave was constructed, constituting the largest interior setting ever built in the country. The New York offices of Xander Drax were constructed on Stage 6. Filming in Queensland also took the production to the Brisbane City Hall, where the interior lobby was redecorated to resemble a New York museum, where Kit Walker finds one of the three Skulls of Touganda. Manor Apartment Hotel in Brisbane was used as a stand in for a New York skyscraper.[citation needed]
On the final day of shooting, the production relocated to Los Angeles, California to complete a scene that would ultimately end up deleted from the final cut of the film, where the Phantom wrestles a lion. Filming concluded on February 13, 1996.[13]
Many scenes developing the romance between the Phantom and Diana Palmer were cut in order to make the film more fast-paced. An action scene featuring the Phantom fighting a snake was also cut.[citation needed] A scene with the Phantom and his horse Hero rearing in the sunset was cut out of the film, but shown at the end of the 1996 A&E documentary The Phantom: Comic Strip Crusader.[14]
The film features several elements from Lee Falk's first two Phantom stories from the 1936 daily newspaper strips, "The Singh Brotherhood" and "The Sky Band". Several of the characters in the film derive from these stories: Kabai Sengh (played by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), leader of the Sengh Brotherhood (the name of the brotherhood was changed to 'Sengh' in the film, to avoid offending people named Singh), Sala (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones), leader of the Sky Band, a group of female air pirates, and Jimmy Wells (Jon Tenney), a wealthy playboy.[citation needed]
The more realistic plots of Falk's original stories were dropped in favor of an adventure tale that featured the supernatural "Skulls of Touganda". Falk's story "The Belt",[15] where the Phantom fights the killer of his father, was also a major influence on the story, but the name of the murderer is changed from Rama to Quill, and the 20th Phantom, played by Patrick McGoohan, is portrayed as a much older man in the film than in the comic strip.[citation needed]
To coincide with the premiere of the film, the Phantom was used as a part of the Got Milk? campaign, based on the character's drinking milk in the comic.[16] Two different Phantom action figures were made by Street Player,[17] and promotional Phantom-rings were also offered. Different sets of Phantom collecting cards were also available in countries such as the United States, Australia, Finland and Sweden. Movie theater popcorn tubs and paper soda cups featuring the film's poster were also used to help promote the film.
The film suffered the same fate as two other period-piece comic book/pulp adaptations of the 1990s, The Rocketeer (1991) and The Shadow (1994), and did not fare very well at the box office in the United States, debuting at number six the weekend of June 7, 1996.[18] It has since sold well on VHS and DVD.[4][better source needed] [19]
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