Flight (2012 film)

Airline pilot Captain Whip Whitaker uses cocaine to wake up after a sleepless night in his Orlando hotel room. He pilots SouthJet Air Flight 227 aboard an MD-88 to Atlanta, which experiences severe turbulence at takeoff. Copilot Ken Evans takes over while Whip discreetly mixes vodka in his orange juice and takes a nap. Just before starting the descent to 22,000 feet, he is jolted awake by a loud metallic bang just before the plane goes into a steep dive. Unable to control the elevators, Whip is forced to invert the aircraft to maintain altitude. At the last moment he is able to right the plane for a controlled crash landing in an open field in Clayton County, Georgia.

Whip awakens in an Atlanta hospital with moderate injuries and is greeted by his old friend Charlie Anderson, who represents the pilots' union. He tells Whip that 96 out of 102 survived the landing, losing two crew members and four passengers, but Evans is in a coma. Whip sneaks away for a cigarette and meets Nicole Maggen, a heroin addict recovering from a recent overdose in the same hospital. The next morning, his friend and drug dealer Harling Mays picks him up from the hospital.

Having retired to his late father's farm, Whip meets Charlie and attorney Hugh Lang, who explain that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) performed a drug test while he was unconscious. Results showed that Whip was intoxicated during the flight. Hugh promises to get the toxicology report voided on technical grounds and succeeds. Whip visits and soon becomes intimate with Nicole but Whip's drinking habits clash with Nicole's attempts to stay drug-free. Later, he attends a funeral for Katerina, a flight attendant who died in the crash, and with whom Whip had spent the night before the incident. He sees a surviving crew member, Margaret, and asks her to tell the NTSB that he was sober.

Whip pays a visit to his copilot Ken Evans after he awakens from his coma. Evans has likely lost much of his ability to walk and may never pilot an airplane again. Although upset, Evans has no intention of telling the NTSB that Whip was drinking. Nicole decides to separate from Whip after he fails to stay sober. Hounding him, the media catches Whip drunk after he spontaneously drives to the home of his ex-wife and son Will, both of whom resent him. He stays with Charlie until the NTSB hearing, vowing not to drink. The night before the hearing, Charlie and Hugh move Whip to a guarded hotel room with no alcohol. But the connecting door to an adjacent room is unlocked, and Whip raids the minibar there.

Whip is discovered by Charlie the next morning, asleep and still drunk. Harling is called to revive him with cocaine. At the hearing, lead NTSB investigator Ellen Block explains that the elevator-assembly jackscrew was the primary cause of the crash, as it had been improperly maintenanced. She commends Whip on his valor and skill, noting that no other pilot was able to land the plane in trial simulations of the crash. She then reveals that two empty vodka bottles were found in the plane's trash, despite beverages not being served to passengers, and that Whip's blood test was excluded for technical reasons. She then states the only other member of the crew to test positive for alcohol was Katerina. Whip pauses, unable to bring himself to blame Katerina for his actions. He collects himself and comes clean, admitting to being drunk the day of the crash; he also admits to currently being drunk.

Thirteen months later, an imprisoned Whip lecturing a support group of fellow inmates says he is glad to be sober and doesn't regret doing the right thing. Whip is seen looking at pictures of Nicole, family and friends on the wall of his cell, along with greeting cards congratulating him on his first anniversary of being sober. He is working to rebuild his relationship with his son, who visits to speak with him about a college application essay he's working on. It's about "the most fascinating person that I've never met". His son begins by asking, "Who are you?" As a plane flies overhead, Whip replies, "That's a good question".

Denzel Washington and Kelly Reilly in Paris at the film's French premiere, January 2013.

• Denzel Washington as Whip Whitaker
• Don Cheadle as Hugh Lang
• Kelly Reilly as Nicole
• Bruce Greenwood as Charlie Anderson
• John Goodman as Harling Mays
• Melissa Leo as Ellen Block
• Tamara Tunie as Margaret Thomason
• Nadine Velazquez as Katerina Marquez
• Brian Geraghty as Ken Evans
• Peter Gerety as Avington Carr
• Garcelle Beauvais as Deana Coleman
• Justin Martin as Will
• James Badge Dale as Gaunt Young Man
• Piers Morgan as Himself
• E. Roger Mitchell as Craig Matson
• Sarah Clark as Radio Talk Show Host (voice)
• Vinnie Hasson as Radio Talk Show Host (voice)
• Randy Thom as Radio Stock Market Reporter (voice)
• Dennis P. Wise as Air Traffic Controller (voice)
• Paul Volle as Air Traffic Controller (voice)
• Hal Williams as Whip's Dad (voice)
• Kwesi Boakye as Young Will (voice)

In August 2009, Variety reported that Walt Disney Pictures and filmmaker Robert Zemeckis were negotiating to produce a 3D computer-animated remake of Yellow Submarine. Motion capture was to be used, as with Zemeckis' previous animated films The Polar Express (2004), Monster House (2006), Beowulf (2007) and A Christmas Carol (2009). Variety also indicated that Disney hoped to release the film in time for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.[4] Disney and Apple Corps officially announced the Yellow Submarine remake at the inaugural D23 Expo on 11 September 2009.[5]

Comedian Peter Serafinowicz was cast to voice Paul, Dean Lennox Kelly as John, Cary Elwes as George, Adam Campbell as Ringo and David Tennant as the Chief Blue Meanie.[6] California-based Beatles tribute band The Fab Four were cast to perform the performance capture animation for the animated Beatles.[7][8]

In May 2010, Disney later closed Zemeckis' digital film studio ImageMovers Digital after the unsatisfactory box-office performance of A Christmas Carol.[9] On 14 March 2011, Disney abandoned the project, citing the disastrous opening weekend results of Mars Needs Moms. Criticism toward motion-capture technology was also a factor.[9]

Robert Zemeckis then entered negotiations to direct to Flight in April 2011,[10] and by early June had accepted, with Denzel Washington about to finalize his own deal.[11] It was the first time Zemeckis and Washington worked together on a motion picture.

By mid-September 2011, Kelly Reilly was in negotiations to play the female lead,[12] with Don Cheadle,[13] Bruce Greenwood,[13] and John Goodman[14] joining later in the month, and Melissa Leo and James Badge Dale in final negotiations.[15] Screenwriter John Gatins said in early October 2011 that production would begin mid-month.[16] Flight was largely filmed on location near Atlanta, Georgia, over 45 days in November 2011.[17] The film's relatively small budget of $31 million, which Zemeckis later calculated was his smallest budget in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1980, was due to tax rebates from Georgia and from Zemeckis and Washington having waived their customary fees.[17]

Gatins explained in a 2012 interview with the Los Angeles Times that the dramatic fictional crash depicted in Flight was "loosely inspired" by the 2000 crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261,[17] which was caused by a broken jackscrew. In that incident the broken jackscrew caused a catastrophic failure from which recovery was impossible but Pilot Ted Thompson and First Officer Bill Tansky were actually able to fly their plane inverted in the last moments of that flight. Among the captain's last words on the CVR were:

Okay we are inverted... Now we got to get it... Are we flying? We're flying... We're flying... Tell them what we're doing. At least upside down we're flying."[18]

That crash had no survivors. The airplane in Flight, a two-engine T-tail jet airliner, appears to be from the same model family as Alaska Airlines 261, a variant of the MD-80. Many elements from the accident were used in the film such as the cause of the accident, segments of the radio communication, and the decision to invert the airplane.

Scroggins Aviation Mockup & Effects was hired to supply production with three decommissioned MD-80 series aircraft that were used in Flight to represent the plane in the film, with additional MD-80 series aircraft being used for scenes of the aircraft's cabin and cockpit.[19][20]

• Alaska Airlines Flight 261
• The Pilot (1980 film)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Flight (2012 film).

• Flight at IMDb
• Flight at AllMovie