Fallen (2016 film)

Fallen 2016 A movie adapted from the Novel “Fallen” by Lauren Kate

Fallen is a young adult, paranormal romance novel which is the first one in the Fallen series authored by Lauren Kate published under Delacorte Press in 2009. The center character of the novel is Lucinda Price, a young girl who is accused of murdering a boy and is sent to Sword & Cross Reform School in Savannah for it. There, she meets a handsome boy Daniel, whom she feels mysteriously drawn to, and feels that she has already met him before. The main concepts in the book are that of religion, reincarnation, and fallen angels.

The story behind the adaptation of the novel Fallen started even before it was published. It all began when producers Gordon Grey and Mark Ciardi of Mayhem Productions took a huge gamble and approached the much-admired Australian director Scott Hicks. As it turned out, the director was immensely intrigued by the emotional power of the novel, and it's fascinating characters and the raw passion it conveyed.

Scott Hicks felt that the novel is a gothic teen romance which has been going on for almost a thousand years. He felt the story presented him with a real possibility of carving an exciting film and was aware that the story was not a mere visual effect treat but also had very intriguing characters who will linger in the minds of the audience even after they left the theatres. He also saw the possibility of making a series of films as the characters involved in the film are complicated enough. Besides, he felt it as a challenge to make a film in a genre which he hadn’t touched till then.

However, the author, Lauren Kate, had some reluctance about her novel’s being adapted for the silver screen. But once she met Scott Hicks, her initial nervousness about giving her story for movie adaptation were swept aside.  She thought Scott has a very sensual viewpoint of the story, and he was identical to her readers in connecting with it. She understood that the filmmakers were strongly aware of the large fan base the novel had and their expectations and so agreed for a movie adaptation. 

Plot

Lucinda "Luce" Price is sent to "Sword and Cross", a reform/college prep school for young adults, after she is blamed for the death of Trevor, a boy who Luce once had a crush on. After they kissed, Trevor was killed in a fire shortly after Luce saw the "shadows"; paranormal, ink-like smudges that Luce has been seeing since childhood.

Upon arriving at her new school, Luce meets various students, including Cameron "Cam", who she falls in love with; Arriane Alter, who takes Luce under her wing; Molly Zane, who harasses Luce; Pennyweather "Penn", whom Luce befriends; and Daniel. She also meets Miss Sophia, a religious scholar teacher.

During detention (picking up trash), Luce is almost crushed by an avenging angel statue. Later, Cam flirts with Luce and almost kisses her before inviting her to a party. At the party, Luce begins to develops a crush on Cam, but this is hindered by her constant feeling of an unusual connection with Daniel. Molly then shows up, then proceeds to harass and almost kill Luce before Arriane intervenes. As Luce leaves, she sees the "shadows" again.

Luce overhears Sophia telling Daniel that Cam may have been behind the angel statue almost falling on Luce. The two then realize that Luce is listening to them, and Daniel goes after Luce. After he finds her, he reveals that, during class, he was working on a graphic novel. In this novel, a boy and a girl are in love with each other, but are cursed such that every time they kiss, the girl dies; the girl then reincarnates, meets the boy (who never ages or changes) 17 years later, and they kiss again, only for the cycle to repeat.

Cam lures Luce to a club, where he tries to kiss her, only to be violently interrupted by Daniel, who yells that he had told Cam to stay away from Luce; Luce, fleeing the scene, then tells Penn what happened. Penn and another boy, Todd, help Luce sneak into the school and discover a photo from 1854 of Daniel and Luce. As Penn wanders off to retrieve the photo from the printer, Luce goes to the library, where she sees the "shadows" again. Another mysterious fire then occurs that ends up engulfing the library and killing Todd. Daniel rescues an unconscious Luce from the fire.

Luce finds Daniel on a roof top, where it is revealed that Luce and Daniel are the boy and girl from Daniel's graphic novel, and that Daniel is a fallen angel, which explains his immortality. The two kiss, but Cam arrives, telling Luce that she has not been baptized, meaning that Lucifer will come for her. He tries to convince Luce to pick him instead of Daniel, but Daniel whisks Luce away and drops her off with Sophia, leaving to fight Cam and keep Lucifer from coming for Luce.

As the two fight, Cam reveals that he was not the one behind Luce's murder; meanwhile, Sophia kills Penn. Luce screams, causing Daniel to come to Luce's aid and protect Sophia, who was actually the one trying to kill Luce. Sophia justifies her murders by explaining that, with Luce gone, Daniel would have been forced to choose a side and order would have been restored. The shadows show up behind Sophia as she is talking and consume her.

Daniel explains to a visibly shaken Luce that Luce's lack of a baptism would cause her next death to be permanent; Sophia thought that this would cause Daniel to choose Heaven. He also tells her that Lucifer will indeed come for her due to her lack of a baptism. He tells her that he must take her somewhere safe, which he proceeds to do as the two declare their love for each other.

Jeremy Irvine's character in the movie Fallen (2016)

In the movie Fallen, Jeremy Irvine plays Daniel, who is a fallen angel and immortal. He was previously the sixth angel in Heaven and was known as the Angel of Lost Souls. When forced to choose between Heaven or Hell, instead of choosing between the two, Daniel called the war between the two foolish and chose love. He wanted Lucida. Lucida also took sides with him. This decision provoked both Lucifer and Throne, and so a curse was set on both Daniel and Luce.  The curse was that they would never be together and that Luce would die before reaching adulthood and the moment she remembered the choice they made.

At the beginning of the movie, Daniel tries to pretend he is not interested in Luce, and prefer to keep Luce’s past a secret. This was because he was afraid that if she learns about her past, she will die. Daniel has already watched her die in many previous births and don't want to lose her again. As Luce begins to know Daniel more closely, he becomes very protective over her and acts as if he has known her for ages. Daniel's character seems to be extremely mysterious and aloof in the movie. He turns from hot to cold in seconds, and Jeremy Irvine seems to have done justice to the role given to him. 

Addison Timlin's character in the movie Fallen (2016)

Harrison Gilbertson's character in the movie Fallen (2016)

Cast

Crew

Soundtracks

Development

Lotus Entertainment is the producer in charge of taking the adaptation to the cinema, initially when the novel was bought in December 2009, the producing company Walt Disney Pictures was the first to buy the whole saga since Fallen ones consists of 5 books and an annex, In total 6, but by the middle of 2013, Disney declined and withdrew from the project, leaving all production to Lotus Entertainment. The pre-production began in May 2014 after the recordings were finished in Budapest, Hungary.

Pre-production

Pre-production started from September 2013, while recordings began in February 2014 in Budapest, Hungary, recordings were spread over 7 months of recordings, 5 months of tape recordings and 3 months of voice recordings, later the film had been finished in April 2016, the film was two years in pre-production. Origo Film Group studios in Budapest were chosen for the film's production, work on the "angels" flight scenes and the construction of some planes of exterior areas, in the studios, could be analyzed and viewed detail the elaboration and the final work before the introduction of the special effects.

Casting

On August 16, 2013, two main characters were announced, Addison Timlin would play Lucinda "Luce" Price and Jeremy Irvine would play Daniel Grigori, both were released by writer Lauren Kate on their website. Later on September 25, 2013 it was officially announced that the Australian Harrison Gilbertson would play Cameron "Cam" Briel, the third main character. On January 19, 2014 it was officially confirmed in Australia "IF" magazine on its website that Australia's Sianoa Smit-McPhee would play "Molly", the antagonistic character.

On February 17, it was announced by a Twitter message in the official account of the actress Hermione Corfield her stay in Budapest, days later would confirm her participation in the adaptation of Fallen side in the role of "Gabbe." On March 1, 2014 actress Juliet Aubrey confirmed her involvement in the adaptation as Luce's mother, Doreen Price. On February 18, 2014 was officially announced that actress Daisy Head would play Arriane Alter, this was released by the father of the actress via Twitter. On April 9, 2014, the remaining members of the rest of the cast were officially announced on the website of Fallen Writer, Lauren Kate. The actor Malachi Kirby will play Roland Sparks, the English actress Lola Kirke will be the one of life to Penn and Chris Ashby like Todd Hammond, the other actors that already had been confirmed like Hermione Corfield (Gabbe), Daisy Head (Arriane Alter) and Sianoa Smit-McPhee (Molly), have also been confirmed by the writer officially on their website, later the rest of the remaining characters were officially confirmed.

Curiously, the actor Jeremy Irvine who incarnated fallen angel (Daniel), was involved in the casting process for other young adult franchises that became adapted into films, such as, The Hunger Games for the role of Peeta Mellark and in Divergent for the role of Tobias 'Four' Eaton, both were rejected by him. Later in the auditions of Fallen, Irvine was fascinated by the script and chose to stay with the project.

Filming

After the change of producers, the producers and the director Scott Hicks began the search of the set, the chosen place was the European country of Hungary; Approximately 2 km from the capital of Hungary was the place chosen to begin the recordings, but were different places where Dark was recorded, the first was Tura Castle, would be the main enclosure that would conform to Sword & Cross, together with the castle Wenckheim-kastély (Szabadkígyós) also located in Hungary, the library would be another enclosure apart where they were filmed, the three buildings formed the reformatory. Subsequently, filming date had been established at the beginning of September, but was delayed until February 9, 2014 in Budapest. There were five months of recordings plus two extra weeks of voice recording between the end of July and August.

The first building forms the classrooms, the reception and the bedrooms, the second building houses the swimming pool and the third building houses the library; it is noteworthy that the cemetery that is narrated in the book was omitted.

Marketing

By the end of 2016, the trailer for Fallen leaked in the Philippines, the first country to be chosen for the premiere of the film, with low resolution and poor quality of image and sound. Lotus Entertainment had to re-edit the trailer, modify small scenes and include credits at the end, once it had leaked.

The leak forced the company to set a release date. It started a speculation about the delay the film suffered for years, however it was known that Fallen did not have a distribution company. Later Relativity Media, directed by Ryan Kavanaugh was interested in distributing it, after several days of negotiation. In the end the release date was greenlit, with the premiere taking place at the Philippines. The film was scheduled to be released on September 1, 2017, by Vertical Entertainment.

In December 2016, the film was promoted at the Brazilian Comic-Con Experiencie, where Fallen had its own panel. A press conference took place with Lauren Kate (writer of Fallen) and Addison Timlin (Lucinda Price). During the event the Brazilian trailer was shown for the fans.

Critical reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 8% based on 13 reviews, with an average rating of 3.2/10.

Fallen (2016) Movie Review

Fallen 2 Movie & Sequels

In December 2014, it was announced that Torment, the second installment in the Fallen book series, was in development. It is unknown whether the last two novels, Passion and Rapture, and the spin-off novel, Unforgiven, will be adapted as well. In 2017, producer Kevan Van Thompson asked the fans if they want an adaptation of "Torment", showing that the sequel still could be made. As of now there is no information about Torment movie release date or if its cancelled.