Hollow Man

Following the multi-layered and controversial Starship Troopers (1997), Verhoeven wanted to tone down the levels of sex and violence in his next film, aiming to make a more "conventionally commercial blockbuster".[3] Approximately $50 million of the film's $95 million budget was reserved for visual effects work,[3] which was primarily worked on by Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI)[4] and Tippett Studio.[5] Of the 560 visual effects shots in the film, approximately two-thirds were worked on by SPI and the remaining third by Tippett Studio.[4] Verhoeven also storyboarded most of the film, as he had done with all of his American films after experiencing trouble coordinating the action of Flesh+Blood (1985).[3] He maintains that over 90% of the film is how he storyboarded it,[4] as it was expensive (costing up to $300,000) if he decided to change a camera movement.[4]

The film was shot in chronological order, partially due to the fact that the laboratory set would be physically blown up near the end of the story, a sequence that was captured by 14 cameras at various angles.[4] Principal photography began on April 16, 1999.[6] Six weeks into filming, Elisabeth Shue tore her Achilles tendon, which shut down production on June 25 for over seven weeks.[7] At one point, producers considered replacing her;[8] however, shooting resumed on August 18, 1999, and ran until February 4, 2000.[6]

Hollow Man was one of very few films allowed to shoot directly in front of The Pentagon building, with Verhoeven expressing surprise that the script was approved, because of the themes of the United States Government commissioning scientific experiments into making living beings invisible.[4] Many of the location scenes were shot in and around Washington, D.C., with a restaurant set also being constructed in a building overlooking the U.S. Capitol.[4] The laboratory scenes were shot at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California; the elevator shaft used in the film's climax was built onto the side of the studio's parking garage.[4]

A thermal imaging camera was employed for scenes showing "invisible" animals (most notably Isabelle the gorilla) or Sebastian following his transformation and the unsuccessful attempt to restore him to visibility; the same technique was used for characters when they look through thermal goggles.[4] As Isabelle was played in part by a man in a gorilla suit, crew members had to stand by and warm the suit with hair dryers in order for the thermal camera to accurately emulate an actual gorilla's warmth.[4]

Despite assumptions that Bacon would not be needed on set except when his character Sebastian is visible, Verhoeven and the crew realized after test footage was shot that he would need to be present to interact with the cast, as "the other actors were stranded in empty space, and the scenes looked stiff, inorganic and unconvincing" without him.[3] Guy Pearce and Edward Norton were also considered for the role of Sebastian before Bacon was chosen, in part for his "ability to be both charming and diabolical".[9] At the time of Hollow Man's release, Bacon recounted a "bad morning" on which, among other mishaps, he read a story in the press that suggested Robert Downey, Jr. had been offered the film's title role.[10][11]

To achieve the effects of Sebastian being invisible, Bacon was digitally removed from the footage and each scene was shot twice: once with the actors and once without, for the background to be able to be seen through Sebastian's body.[3] The crew used a motion-control camera, to ensure the same movements were achieved and the shots were then composited in post-production.[3] For scenes where Sebastian was outlined in smoke, water and blood, Bacon wore a latex body suit, face mask, contact lenses and a dental plate all of one color; green was used for blood, blue for smoke, and black for water.[3] Visual effects supervisor Craig Hayes then replaced Bacon with a digital clone to form an outline of his performance.[3] To make the clone appear more like Bacon, information about "every aspect" of his body was recorded and the entirety of his body, including his genitals, was scanned into a computer.[3] This special-effect performance earned Hayes a nomination to an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, but he lost it to Gladiator.

Inspired after his daughter bought him books on the subject of écorchés at La Specola in Florence, Verhoeven enlisted special effects supervisor Scott Anderson to create a three-dimensional digital model of the inside of Bacon's body, to create the "transformation scene" where Sebastian becomes invisible.[3] New volume-rendering software was required just to replicate the inside of Bacon's body.[3] The scene depicts Sebastian disappearing in stages; first, his skin, followed by his muscles, organs (including his lungs and heart) and finally, his skeleton.[3] Bacon detailed the complications of his role in a diary he kept while filming and believed the "sense of isolation, anger and suffering" that he felt while wearing the mask and body suit helped his performance.[9]

The scene of an invisible Sebastian raping a woman in a neighboring apartment was shot in two versions, with the second showing her screaming as she is raped. The first was used when preview audiences reacted with disdain, deeming it "painful" and feeling it alienated them from Sebastian too early.[9][12] Although excising certain shots from the version he called "stronger[,] harsher and at the same time more relevant [for Sebastian Caine]", Verhoeven did not actually intend to show the rape, claiming "a woman being raped by an invisible man would look silly and that's the last thing we'd want to do. [...] It wouldn't express in any way the severity of the violence happening at that moment."[9] Regardless, it was Verhoeven's first film he did not have to recut and resubmit to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in order to achieve an R rating.[3]

On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 27% based on 118 reviews, with an average rating of 4.35/10. The site's critics consensus states: "Despite awesome special effects, Hollow Man falls short of other films directed by Paul Verhoeven. This flick over time degenerates into a typical horror film."[16] At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 24 out of 100, based on from 35 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews”.[17] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.[18]

While some critics criticized the plot and acting, with some claiming it contains hallmarks of slasher films[19] and misogynistic undertones,[20] most critics praised the visual effects employed on making Kevin Bacon invisible, which earned the film a nomination at the 2001 Academy Awards.

Roger Ebert gave the film 2 stars out of 4, and complained that Verhoeven wasted potential by taking an invisible man and doing nothing more than having him go berserk. While ultimately feeling that the film is merely a slasher film with a science gimmick, Ebert praised the special effects, calling them "intriguing" and "astonishing".[19]

The film received three nominations at the 2000 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards: Worst On-Screen Group (the scientists), Worst Screenplay for a Film That Grossed over $100 Million Using Hollywood Math, and Most Unintentionally Funny Movie, but lost to Battlefield Earth and Gone in 60 Seconds, respectively.[21]

A fake review attributed to David Manning was revealed in late 2001 as a hoax, created by Sony to fake publicity for the film.[22]

Verhoeven was not happy with the movie. In 2013, he remarked to The Hollywood Reporter, "I decided after Hollow Man, this is a movie, the first movie that I made that I thought I should not have made. It made money and this and that, but it really is not me anymore. I think many other people could have done that. I don't think many people could have made RoboCop that way, or either Starship Troopers. But Hollow Man, I thought there might have been 20 directors in Hollywood who could have done that. I felt depressed with myself after 2002."[23]

Despite a negative response from critics, the film debuted at #1 with $26.4 million in its opening weekend. After fifteen weeks of release, Hollow Man had grossed in excess of $73.2 million in North America and just over $117 million elsewhere, making a total of $190.2 million worldwide, against its $95 million production budget.[2] It was Verhoeven's biggest hit since Basic Instinct (1992).[3]