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ANTITRUST |
MGM Pictures, in association with Hyde Park Entertainment, present an Industry Entertainment production
Prod: Nick Wechsler, Keith Addis, David Nicksay; Exec prod: David Hoberman, Ashok Amritraj, CO ‘Doc’ Erickson, Julia Chasman; Dir: Peter Howitt; Scr: Howard Franklin; Ph: John Bailey; Prod des: Catherine Hardwicke; Cost des: Maya Mani; Ed: Zach Staenberg; Mus: Don Davis.
With Ryan Phillippe (Milo), Rachael Leigh Cook (Lisa), Claire Forlani (Alice), Tim Robbins (Gary Winston), Richard Roundtree (Barton), Ned Bellamy (Phil), Douglas McFerran (Shrot).
International distribution: 20th Century Fox.
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Claire Forlani as Milo’s
original girlfriend, Alice
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The original script for Antitrust was written by Howard Franklin, whose credits include such ‘thinking man’s’ thrillers as The Name of the Rose and Someone to Watch Over Me. Starting out with the idea of writing a script set in the computer industry, Franklin soon latched on to the idea of digital convergence, and found it gave him the perfect driving force for his story: it was a motive so desirable that men would kill to attain it - as Milo gradually begins to realise.
Antitrust was the first script David Hoberman read after his company, Hyde Park Entertainment, signed a deal with MGM, and it became the first film to be made under that deal. With a cast also including Claire Forlani as the girl Milo leaves behind and Rachael Leigh Cook as the fellow software freak he forms an increasingly important - and ultimately life-saving - alliance with at NURV, the movie went in front of the cameras a year ago. The University of British Columbia’s Chan Center - a hypermodern performing arts centre on UBC’s Vancouver campus - doubled as NURV’s headquarters. Because of its shape, the building is known as ‘The Egg’, and that shape provided the motif for production designer Catherine Hardwicke’s striking designs.
Milo (Ryan Phillippe) with NURV’s charismatic boss, Gary Winston (Tim Robbins)
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“The Egg has a sense of fun, of playfulness, of visual stimulation, but it’s also about bringing out the best from the workers,” she says. “From the beginning, I knew it was a chance to really be radical and cutting-edge. Peter Howitt encouraged me to go for it. We all agreed that this is a story about a guy who is always pushing the envelope, always one step ahead, so this was the guiding principle for our design.”
But, insists Howitt, the look is a means to an end. It provides an environment which symbolises all the forces that Milo finds himself up against. And it is those forces which give Antitrust its quota of action as Phillippe’s character, like many a conspiracy victim before him, struggles to get out of the web alive.
“It’s a thrilling ride,” says the director. But there’s more to it than just an excuse for action. “The audience might also stop and think ‘Where do you draw the line? How much power should one person have?’ A lot of us have to face our own Gary Winstons. Maybe we can learn from Milo’s story.”
“It’s a lightning fast industry.
You can’t ever sleep. You can’t ever rest on your laurels. You have to constantly be adapting to new people, new discoveries, new ideas”
Tim Robbins
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