Life (2017 film)

Life is a 2017 American science fiction horror film directed by Daniel Espinosa, written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick and starring an ensemble cast consisting of Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare, and Olga Dihovichnaya. In the film, a six-member crew of the International Space Station uncovers the first evidence of extraterrestrial life on Mars. When members of the crew conduct their research, the rapidly evolving life-form proves to be far more intelligent and dangerous than expected.

The development of Life began in November 2015, when it was announced that Espinosa would direct a film set in space written by Wernick and Reese. After the deal with Paramount Pictures was not confirmed, Sony Pictures signed on to handle the worldwide distribution rights and co-finance the film, with Skydance in March 2016. The casting call took place in January 2016, and filming took place in France, New York City and Vietnam between February and July. The visual effects were handled by DNEG, Industrial Light & Magic, NVIZIBLE, One of Us, Outpost VFX and Atomic Fiction.

It premiered at South by Southwest on March 18, 2017, and was theatrically released in the United States by Sony Pictures Releasing on March 24, 2017. It received positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and mixed reviews on Metacritic. It grossed $100 million worldwide against a $58 million budget.

Plot

In the near future, an uncrewed space probe returns from Mars to Earth's orbit with soil samples potentially containing evidence of extraterrestrial life. The probe is collected by the International Space Station, where exobiologist Hugh Derry revives a dormant cell that quickly grows into a multi-celled organism; a group of schoolchildren vote to name the organism "Calvin".

An atmosphere change in Calvin's container causes it to enter hibernation. To wake it up, Hugh administers an electric shock. Calvin becomes hostile, wrapping itself around Hugh's hand and crushing it. Calvin escapes its enclosure by fabricating a tool and devours a lab rat, growing in size. Engineer Rory Adams rescues Hugh, but Calvin grabs onto his leg, prompting Dr. David Jordan to seal the lab. After Rory fails to kill Calvin with fire, the organism kills him by forcing itself down his throat and assimilating his organs. It escapes the lab through a vent.

The crew attempts to inform Earth, but the station's communication system shuts down before the entire message can be sent. The station commander, Ekaterina "Kat" Golovkina, performs a spacewalk to find and fix the communications system. Calvin attacks Kat and damages her spacesuit. As her suit fills with coolant, Kat returns to the airlock. Against David's wishes, Kat sacrifices herself to keep Calvin out of the station; however, Calvin latches on to the station before she drifts into space.

Calvin attempts to re-enter the station through its maneuvering thrusters. The crew fire the thrusters to blast it away, but the loss of fuel sends the station into a decaying orbit, where it will burn up when it reenters Earth's atmosphere. Systems tech Sho Murakami suggests using the remaining fuel to get back into a stable orbit, even though it will allow Calvin to re-enter. The crew agree as Hugh says Calvin could potentially survive re-entry. The crew plan to seal themselves in one side of the station and quarantine Calvin in the other before venting the atmosphere to kill Calvin. Unknown to Hugh, who is a paraplegic, Calvin attaches itself to his leg and uses him to slip out of the quarantined area. The crew discovers Calvin feeding from Hugh after he collapses; as Hugh dies from blood loss, Sho seals himself inside a sleeping pod, while Calvin tries to break inside. David and Miranda use Hugh's corpse as bait to lure Calvin away and trap it.

As they vent the atmosphere from Calvin's area, a spacecraft approaches the space station. Miranda informs David that having received most of the original distress call, the protocol would be for Earth to send a Soyuz spacecraft to push the station into deep space to stop Calvin from reaching Earth. Unaware that the new craft is not a rescue, Sho opens the hatch to it. Calvin follows him and kills the Soyuz's crew, and the airlock between the Soyuz and the space station is breached. Sho sacrifices himself in another attempt to launch Calvin into space. The Soyuz disconnects and crashes into the space station, knocking it back into a decaying orbit.

David and Miranda try to trap Calvin in an escape pod. Once inside, David will pilot the pod containing Calvin into deep space, allowing Miranda to return to Earth in the other pod. David leads Calvin into his pod by baiting it with oxygen sticks and launches into space. As Miranda launches her pod, she records a black box message to warn Earth of Calvin's intelligence and deadliness. Both pods are hit by debris from the damaged Soyuz. One pod ends up landing in the south Pacific Ocean and is found by Vietnamese fishermen, while the other pod flies away from Earth into deep space. The fishermen look inside the pod's window to see Calvin enveloping David in the entirety of the interior; Miranda screams in horror as her out-of-control pod drifts away from Earth. As more boats approach the pod, the unsuspecting fishermen open its hatch door despite David's pleas not to.

Cast

• Jake Gyllenhaal as Dr. David Jordan, USA, ISS medical officer.
• Rebecca Ferguson as Dr. Miranda North, UK, CDC quarantine officer.
• Ryan Reynolds as Rory Adams, USA, ISS engineer.
• Hiroyuki Sanada as Sho Murakami, Japan, ISS systems engineer.
• Ariyon Bakare as Dr. Hugh Derry, UK, ISS exobiologist.
• Olga Dihovichnaya as Ekaterina "Kat" Golovkina, Russia, ISS Mission Commander.
• Naoko Mori as Kazumi, Sho Murakami's wife.

Production

Development

On November 18, 2015, Deadline Hollywood reported that Daniel Espinosa would direct a film set in space and titled Life, from a script from Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, which Skydance Media would finance and produce, with David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Bonnie Curtis, and Julie Lynn. Paramount Pictures was circling to handle the distribution rights to the film, though the deal was not confirmed. On January 28, 2016, Rebecca Ferguson came on board to star in the film, and Ryan Reynolds subsequently joined, on February 16, 2016. On March 10, 2016, Jake Gyllenhaal was cast in the film. On March 15, 2016, Sony Pictures signed on to handle the worldwide distribution rights and co-finance the film, with Skydance. On June 23, 2016, Hiroyuki Sanada was cast to play one of the members of the International Space Station crew, and on July 19, 2016, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Olga Dihovichnaya and Ariyon Bakare were also cast in the film, playing other crew members. One scene in the trailer for the film features a recycled shot from the 2007 movie, Spider-Man 3.

Filming

Principal photography on the film began at London's Shepperton Studios on July 19, 2016. To emulate the lack of gravity, the actors were suspended by wires that were erased in post-production. Most of the visual effects were handled by Double Negative, aside from the eight-minute long take that opens the movie, which was created by Industrial Light & Magic using the ISS model sculpted by Double Negative. That scene was described by Daniel Espinosa as "the inverse version of Gravity. Gravity looks at the vastness of space through the oner. I wanted to look at the claustrophobia." Espinosa said that Life was "shot to make a science fiction movie that ties into this other great American genre, which is noir", with the death of the most charismatic character that seems to be the protagonist—using Psycho as an example, Espinosa explained that "Ryan [Reynolds] became my Janet Leigh"—and a downer ending.

Music

Composer Jon Ekstrand wrote his sixth score while working with Espinosa. Ekstrand aimed to create an "atonal-horror score with some melodic elements", mostly focused on orchestral music while opening with "more melodic and classical cinematic" tones to not give away the horror trappings early on. Espinosa specifically told Ekstrand to seek a sound reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann, with some influence from Khachaturian to reference the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey (Gayaneh's Adagio, used for long shots of the Discovery heading towards Jupiter).

Release

Life was released by Columbia Pictures on March 24, 2017, after being moved up from its previously announced release date of May 26, 2017, to avoid competition with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Alien: Covenant, the latter of which had moved up its release date from August 4, 2017, to May 19, 2017. Life had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 18, 2017.