Tagline: You’re never too young to die.
Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker. Based on the best selling young adult adventure series of books by Anthony Horowitz, this story concerns Alex Rider (Alex Pettyfer), a 14-year-old orphan who has been unwittingly trained all his life by his uncle with the skills to become a secret agent – scuba diving, mountaineering, martial arts and so on.
When his uncle (Ewan McGregor), an MI6 agent, is killed, Rider learns the truth and finds himself forced against his will to take on a dangerous mission for the British secret service. Using the tools and gadgets of the trade, in the vein of 007, Alex must infiltrate the lair of billionaire and evil mastermind Darrius Sayle (Mickey Rourke) in order to stop him from releasing a biological weapon upon all of England via his brand new, high tech Stormbreaker computers.
Stormbreaker (titled Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker in the United States) is a 2006 action spy film directed by Geoffrey Sax. The screenplay by Anthony Horowitz is based on his novel of the same name, the first novel in the Alex Rider series. The film stars Alex Pettyfer as Alex Rider, and also stars Mickey Rourke, Bill Nighy, Sophie Okenedo, Alicia Silverstone, Sarah Bolger, Stephen Fry and Ewan McGregor. Stormbreaker was an international co-production between companies and financiers from the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany.
The film’s plot follows a teenage boy who is recruited by MI6 after his uncle, a secret agent, is killed in action. He is sent on a mission in Cornwall to gather intelligence behind Stormbreaker, an advanced computer system being provided to schools across Britain, and its creator, billionaire Darrius Sayle.
Intended to be the first entry in a film franchise, Stormbreaker grossed between $20.7 and $23.9 million worldwide upon its theatrical release, thus failing to recoup its $40 million budget. According to Rotten Tomatoes, the film was largely criticised for its lack of originality and believability. As a result of these factors, plans to produce further Alex Rider films were dropped.
What’s the Next Stormbreaker?
Stormbreaker, for those who have not stumbled on the four-page ads, or do not have children, arrives in cinemas tomorrow. It introduces quad-biking, scuba-diving, mountaineering, teenage superspy Alex Rider. It is the first in what the makers obviously hope will be a franchise: Anthony Horowitz, who created Rider, has written six novels about him and sold 10m copies.
Film adaptations of children’s books have always been big business – Disney comes to mind – but since the appearance in 2001 of Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings, they’re really big. Last year alone saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Nanny McPhee, Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm, and the first of seven years of Narnia.
Children, being loyal and obsessive fans, are in many ways the perfect audience, but they are also very clear about how things should be. Big-budget interpretations of favourite books are a huge risk – but when they work, the rewards, especially with a series, are beyond the dreams of avarice.
“For a while after the success [of the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter],” says Joel Rickett, deputy editor of the Bookseller, “if you wrote any vaguely interesting fantasy you stood a good chance of an option being bought, often for a seven-figure sum. Children’s books have benefited hugely.” The film rights for GP Taylor’s Shadowmancer, for example, went for £2.25m.
“The trouble is that only a handful of studios have the money to create worlds on the scale this kind of fiction demands,” says Rickett. So most novels may never see the dark of a movie theatre. Jonathan Stroud’s The Amulet of Samarkand and Lian Hearn’s Across the Nightingale Floor languish in development. Philip Pullman’s trilogy Northern Lights has had its troubles, but New Line Pictures has just cast Lyra, the book’s heroine. This is the next big ship hoving over the horizon.
Yet there are those who hold out. The Fast Show’s Charlie Higson, author of the Young Bond Series, is turning down Hollywood offers. “I don’t want people to come to the character through film,” he has said. Horowitz, meanwhile, has said he would like to create something on the scale of The Lord of the Rings. That will make the studios salivate. Aida Edemariam, The Guardian
Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker (2006)
Directed by: Geoffrey Sax
Starring: Sarah Bolger, Jimmy Carr, Robbie Coltrane, Stephen Fry, Damian Lewis, Ewan McGregor, Bill Nighy, Sophie Okonedo, Missi Pyle, Mickey Rourke, Alicia Silverstone
Screenplay by: Anthony Horowitz
Production Design by: Ricky Eyres
Cinematography by: Chris Seager
Film Editing by: Andrew MacRitchie
Costume Design by: John Bloomfield
Set Decoration by: Lee Gordon
Art Direction by: John Fenner, Alan Gilmore, Michael Kelm
Music by: Alan Parker
MPAA Rating: PG for sequences of action violence and some peril.
Distributed by: The Weinstein Company
Release Date: October 6, 2006
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