Everything we know about the Blackhat production (UPDATED)
Editor’s Note: This is an introductory column from one of the many incredible, insightful and obsessive members of the growing One Heat Minute crew - the man I know as C.K. In the OHM community, C.K is the resident historian and online chronicler of Michael Mann productions. After sharing this work on the exclusive OHM Discord channel, I insisted that C.K. allow me to publish his investigations here.
-Blake Howard
Since there have been some renewed conversations around this film with the announcement of the UHD release, I decided to compose a post explaining all the information I’ve collected about this film. Blackhat is one of Mann’s lesser talked about movies, and due to the lack of extras on its home video release, there isn’t as much information around production as expected. The following is based on behind-the-scenes interviews, production documentaries, production notes, marketing materials and even one or two private conversations.
2011:
Michael Mann learns about Stuxnet virus and is intrigued by cybercrime. He made a deal with Legendary, who wanted him to work on a crime film. He decided to merge his interest in crime with his desire to film in Asia. One of his main areas of research was understanding the mentality of hackers and what their “opiated experience” was. He remarked that for many hackers, it was a reverse loop in which they’d spend several hours coding, but it felt like only a few minutes went by. He mentioned how they were also tempted by warnings that they couldn’t get in, and manifesting a physical impact via digital means excited and encouraged them.
He collaborates with Morgan Davis Foehl on the screenplay. They both wrote it, and early drafts of the script and poster credit them as "Screenplay by" and "Story by". In the end, WGA arbitration meant sole credit went to Foehl. Mann and Foehl did a lot of research by talking to various former blackhat hackers and US government officials, particularly the latter’s concerns over the impact of cybercrime. Foehl mentioned Max Vision was one of the inspirations for the Nick Hathaway character, while Mann, in other interviews, said he had met hackers who were also bodybuilders. It was important to them to try not to conform to the typical perception of a hacker, and much of this was based on their real-life research.
The film was originally alternatively referred to as “Untitled Mann Production” or "Untitled Cyber Thriller". Then it became informally known as Cyber (and was released as Hacker in some countries), although Mann has said Cyber was always just a working title.
2013:
Mann is scouting locations in Asia and meeting with different actors in Hong Kong. In 2012, he had gone to Indonesia to research The Tam and based on that visit, he changed the script's finale from Turkey to Jakarta—the casting of Hemsworth as the lead role was announced in February. Mann was impressed by Hemsworth’s performance in early footage of Rush and met with him while the latter’s family was vacationing in Costa Rica to discuss the part with him. The casting of other actors, including Viola Davis, was announced from spring through the beginning of production. Davis’ character was initially written as half black / half Hispanic. Sadak was written as an orphan in his 20s from the Balkans, and another actor was initially cast but fired the first day of filming as Mann wanted Yorick van Wageningen (the entire time) even though he was the wrong age and had the wrong accent. Spencer Garrett, who plays the banker Gary Baker, was apparently on location in Asia which doesn't quite track as we only see his character in Chicago very briefly.
Pre-production is exhaustive with multiple location scouts in Asia, including some via boat, helicopter and plane. When told a location wasn't suitable for filming, such as the underground tunnel beneath Kassar's Hong Kong hangout, Mann took this as an invitation to challenge. He put his actors through rigorous training around the subjects - UNIX/hacking training, meeting government officials, firearms training, networking, etc. and consulted with real-life hackers and had them present throughout production for the actors to follow. Hemsworth travelled to Chicago with Mann to work at steel mills at 5 am, which was part of his character’s biographical background. Mann also wanted Hemsworth to be able to live code on screen in UNIX, but this didn't end up happening, although the latter did learn some coding basics. Tang Wei mentioned Mann found boxing helped with actors’ coordination, so he put all of them through boxing lessons in LA.
Filming began in LA on May 17, then moved to Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia. At the time of production beginning, Legendary was under Warner Bros, but during post, they signed a deal with Universal instead. All scenes in the US were filmed in LA, including the Chicago Board of Trade and NSA scenes. For the scene in the director's cut involving a large cargo ship, Mann borrowed one of the largest such ships in the world.
Pre-production and production were extensive and exhausting, like any other Mann project. The crew worked for months straight, with one actor remarking Mann’s goal was to shoot for 18-19 hours directly before he went to the hotel room to use the gym bike for an hour. The director had a 50" screen in his hotel room to watch dailies and accordingly would dictate notes to the crew, which were then typed up, printed out and put under heads of department doors. They'd then have to go through the 40-plus page document by the following morning to know what they should do (as Mann would quiz them on it).
Filming was all done on location, predominantly in practical locations not designed for filming, and Mann would frequently change his mind. For the car explosion scene, he decided at the last minute to change one of the camera angles (there were about 12). In promotional interviews, Hemsworth and Viola Davis talked about their exhaustion from the myriad of takes Mann demanded. The scene in which Hathaway tells Sadak and Kassar to meet him in the hollowed-out building was scripted initially to take part in a fishing village that the art crew took several weeks to build in Jakarta. Mann accidentally stumbled across the new location, and shortly after, the set was bulldozed.
Filming ends in early September in Jakarta, with reshoots happening later.
2013-2014:
Joe Walker (who recently won an Oscar for Dune) was chosen as one of Mann's editors based on his work with Steve McQueen. He worked on the film for a one-year assignment and remarked he had a pretty robust cut by the time he left but needed to figure out the differences between his edit / the theatrical cut / the director's cut. Walker was one of four credited editors.
During post-production, the film goes massively over budget (possibly as much as $75 million). Mann relentlessly tinkers until the release weekend, making significant last-minute changes to the film's structure. According to someone who worked on the film, Mann came into the office with a plan to make significant sequence changes after the film was allegedly locked in the edit. In an interview with Collider (from 2015), Mann spoke about his decision to move the nuclear attack to the front of the film.
Mann: “I made one major shift in the movie; it’s a huge shift. The nuclear explosion used to occur after the storm drain, late in the movie. That’s huge. It’s like putting a hand in a socket, pulling it out the other side. I decided, ‘No, I have to have these events occur in the front.’ [The change happened in the ] Editing room. I had to reconstruct a lot of dialogue all along the way. Halfway in his interview, he says, ‘The nuclear reactor I heard about,’ but he didn’t hear about it. He hadn’t heard about the nuclear reactor because the nuclear reactor never happened that early. It was kind of tricky. It became much better.”
Harry Gregson William publicly laments his score being cut up beyond recognition on social media. Although he eventually took down his post, Mann replied and said that he would have preferred if Williams’ music worked but he could always contest himself in the recording arena. Williams was one of several credited and uncredited composers on the films; others included Mike Dean, Ryan Amon, Atticus Ross and Leo Ross. An official soundtrack was never released for Blackhat; when asked about this, Mann said he was unsure of any plans for it, and it was speculated this was likely due to Legendary owning the rights to the film (unlike Mann, which is customary). YouTube playlists of the soundtrack exist, which feature the songs credited at the end of the film; at least one music cue in the film is just the beat of a Mike Dean produced song, but both he and the song remained uncredited. Several major cues, including the one played when Lien and Hathaway head to Malaysia, are actually from the 2013 film Elysium, scored by Amon.
Early marketing material shows the film co-written by Mann and Foehl, although the latter is the only one that gets credit. The release is set for Jan 2015 (basically dumped).
Promotional materials also heavily featured Sadak saying, "You/we are no longer in control" (this was also the tagline) and "This isn’t about money. This isn’t about politics. I can target anyone, anything, anywhere" but neither of these made it into either of the finished cuts.
Additional lines from the trailers not in either cut:
“Some hacker is hitting our financial markets.” - Pollack
“We need a man named Hathaway.” - Chen
“The moment you connect, you lose control.” - Sadak
“No fingerprints, no trace. No mercy.” - Sadak
“To catch this guy, we’re going to need a blackhat hacker named Hathaway. He’s a genius coder serving 15 years.” - Chen
“The guy we’re working will take out a city and not think twice about it.” - Barrett
“To you this is all just a game, a virtual world.” - Hathaway
“I’m going to stop him.” - Hathaway
“You’re no longer in control.” - SadakThis image from the second trailer is also not in the film - although it is CGI-ed into an unrelated scene.
2015:
Blackhat released in January, bombs and loses Legendary over $90 million. The original opening weekend was just $4.4 million and ranked as one of the lowest-grossing films of Mann’s career, unadjusted for inflation. The Rotten Tomatoes critics score is 32%, while the audience score is 24%. Criticism of the film centres around the improbability of Hemsworth’s casting along with the romance and overall pacing of the film.
Despite an earlier planned theatrical rollout, the film gets dumped in international markets straight to home video, including Australia. Although the unprecedented success of American Sniper was given blame, Universal was unhappy with the entire experience of making the film and glad to wash their hands of it, particularly after the problematic productions and poor financial results of Miami Vice and Public Enemies.
Holt McCallany laments the film in an interview, saying he worked very hard and put in an excellent performance but all of his scenes were cut. He was so furious he didn't attend the premiere, and the fact the film bombed both critically and commercially didn't change how he felt about it. During press for Men in Black International (in 2019), Hemsworth also mentioned he didn't like his performance in the film, that it felt flat, and it was the type of role he thought people would want to see him play.
The film's disastrous critical and commercial reception also led to the most significant gap in feature films of Mann’s career of almost nine years - Blackhat was released in January 2015, and Ferrari will be released in December 2023.
2016:
A "re-edited" version of the film premieres at a retrospective in NY. The original script order had the soy hack occur first, and the nuclear reactor hack takes place well into the film. The theatrical cut reversed this as Mann and the studio felt it increased the sense of stakes offered, although Mann later said in reflection this was a mistake and that he was dissatisfied with the decision. He explained the challenging aspect of the film was that it was an event-driven narrative and that he was trying to keep a quick but by switching the order of events, he likely obfuscated the audience's plot tracking. He also said it did not react to the film's hostile critical reception. He needed to be more steady on whether this cut would ever be released on home video. Reports from the screening said he was still taking notes and tinkering with the film. He also apparently laughed when the car with Dawai explodes and when Hathaway says, "You son of a bitch" in Perak.
2017:
In promotional material for the Ali re-release, it's stated there are still no plans to release the Director's Cut on Blu-ray. The BAM/NY retrospective version premieres on FX for a limited time with some edits made by Mann for the FX premiere, including some remixing and other changes. It's called a director's cut.
The director’s cut eventually released on Blu-ray differs from the FX broadcast version, likely indicating that it is the same version as the one shown in NY in 2016. Outside of the added and removed scenes, the changes include different audio cues and colour schemes for certain scenes.
Below are the differences between the Director’s Cut Blu-ray and the Theatrical Cut.
Added scenes:
The film now begins with the soy hack and includes a vessel being denied port entry due to the valuation of its cargo.
Barrett and Chicago IT director Robichaud are formally introduced and speak to Chen on the phone about the hack.
Hathaway, Jessup and Lien are tailed on arrival in Hong Kong. They lose their tail.
Removed scenes:
The warden asks Hathaway about hacking the prison accounting system. When Hathaway refuses to play ball, he is thrown in solitary and is shown doing vertical pushups. As a result, Hathaway is introduced later in the film (15m in vs 7m).
Barrett and Chen realised that they should look for sellers of soy instead of buyers.
Hathaway and Lien in a cab to the Koreatown restaurant, where Hathaway realises he’s attracted to her.
A nuclear power plant worker explaining to Chen and Hathaway what will happen if they stay too long in the melting reactor.
The scene in which Hathaway spots Sadak and Kassar in the apartment building is excised. The dialogue on the phone call between Sadak and Hathaway is changed slightly. Hence, the latter says, "Meet me at the festival", and Sadak says, "It'll be packed", which is actually from the deleted apartment sequence but it's dubbed over since we don't see him saying the line.
Shortened scenes:
Lien and Hathaway’s dialogue outside of Reyes’ apartment and in the Koreatown restaurant is reduced
The sex scene is slightly reduced, along with Hathaway mentioning his father visiting him in prison, and brief flashbacks are removed
Dialogue between Hathaway and Chen in the helicopter on the way to Kassar’s hideout is reduced
2023:
Arrow announces a UHD version of the film and delays it to include the Director’s Cut on Blu-Ray, the first time this version is getting a home video release. The Theatrical and International Cuts will be released on a 4K Dolby Vision disc, while the Director’s Cut will be on a Blu-ray disc. Features include interviews with the cinematographer and production designer of the film. The release is set for November 28, 2023.
Mann calls the theatrical cut an “aberration” and expresses contentment with the 2016 Director’s Cut. Directly discussing the commercial and critical failure of the film for the first time, he remarked: ‘“It’s my responsibility. The script was not ready to shoot,” says Mann. “The subject may have been ahead of the curve because there were a number of people who thought this was all fantasy. Wrong. Everything is stone-cold accurate.”’