Flight Crew (film)

Plot

Talented young pilot Alexey Gushchin does not accept authority and acts in accordance with a personal code of honor. For failure to comply with an absurd order, he is prevented from flying a military aircraft again and in spite of that, he refuses to ask his father (famous aircraft engineer) for help getting back on the scene. He applies to a passenger airline and displays remarkable flying talent, landing a chance as an intern. Alexey becomes the second pilot-trainee on the Tu-204SM under the guidance of an experienced crew commander, the pilot Leonid Zinchenko. Their work relationship is not easy, but due to Alexey's talent, Leonid chooses to keep him at his side, even after more cases of insubordination (again, failure to comply with absurd orders).

During the flight to Southeast Asia, the crew receives a message about an earthquake on one of the Aleutian Islands and decides to go to the epicenter of the disaster to evacuate people before the expected volcano eruption. Together, the two pilots manage to escape the island on two planes, however, the smaller cargo plane has not enough fuel. Using a risky maneuver, the crew manages to transfer passengers via sky line between the two vessels in air moments before the cargo plane would run out of fuel and crash into the ocean. After the rough, but successful landing in lightning storm the two are terminated from their positions as pilots (as they both disobeyed a direct order), and are transferred to Aeroflot as flight interns.

Filming

Director Nikolai Lebedev wanted to make a disaster film, but did not negotiate with potential producers, until Leonid Vereshchagin and Nikita Mikhalkov suggested to work on a remake for "Air Crew". The director started work with the support of Alexander Mitta, who directed the soviet film of the same name in 1979. The movie received support from Russian Government which funded the movie through the National Cinema Foundation.

Filming started on September 18, 2014 and wrapped on 10 February 2015. The filming took place in Moscow, Moscow region and in the Crimean peninsula. In the peninsula they filmed the earthquake-prone island volcano in the Indian Ocean. The crew shot the flight scenes in two planes: The Tupolev Tu-204SM (RA-64151 board) and decommissioned Tupolev Tu-154 of Kosmos Airlines (RA-85796 board).

Danila Kozlovsky, Vladimir Mashkov and Agnė Grudytė who played the pilots started to work long before the filming had begun, after receiving training in flight school at the helm of an ultramodern flight simulator.

The film was shot in digital 3D IMAX and become the second Russian film shot using this equipment after Stalingrad (2013) by Fedor Bondarchuk.

Post-Production

The film has been dubbed into English for international markets by LipSync Chemistry in London.

Release

The film has been released in Russia and other post-Soviet states in April, 2016. The movie was also released in China. Rights to theatrical distribution of The Crew have been sold to the Middle East, Malaysia, Philippines, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia, Turkey, Baltics, Mongolia, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.

Financial performance

The film grossed ₽1.43 billion (US$21.6 million) in Russia and was the fifth highest-grossing film and the highest-grossing Russian film in the country in 2016.

The film was released in China on August 19, 2016 and it grossed CN¥30.8 million at the Chinese box office.