Patriot Games (film)

The actors who played Jack and Caroline Ryan in The Hunt for Red October, Alec Baldwin and Gates McFadden, did not appear in the film. Baldwin was in negotiations to reprise his role, but committed to perform in A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway.[4] In 2011, Baldwin claimed the role was recast due to David Kirkpatrick forcing him to choose between performing in A Streetcar Named Desire or agreeing to an open-ended clause relating to dates for the first sequel.[5] Baldwin further claimed this occurred after a famous actor, widely believed to be the film's eventual star Harrison Ford, offered to play Ryan and was favored by both the studio and the director John McTiernan due to a large debt owed to him from an unproduced film.[6] McTiernan had originally desired Ford in the role in the first film and confirmed that "there was a great deal of scheming that went on to push Alec out of that part."[7] Kirkpatrick responded to Baldwin's claims by saying that negotiations with him to reprise the role had already broken due to his insistence on script approval.[6]

McTiernan initially wanted to direct an adaptation of Clear and Present Danger using a script written by John Milius.[8][9] After the studio opted to adapt Patriot Games, he declined to direct because of his Irish-American background and was replaced with Phillip Noyce. In the original novel, the assassination attempt was made on the Prince of Wales and many members of the British royal family appeared as important characters. As a result, they were replaced with fictitious characters in the screenplay, with Prince Charles being replaced by Lord Holmes, a nonexistent cousin of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.[8][10]

The movie was filmed on location in areas around London, at Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and at Pinewood Studios.[11] Scenes were also filmed in Annapolis, Maryland.[12] Jack Ryan's home was filmed on the California coast and made to look like it was in Maryland.[13]

The scenes set at a terrorist camp in Libya were filmed in the desert near Brawley, California. To make the attack on the camp appear as infrared footage, actors wearing black body suits were filmed from a helicopter and the resulting video images were reversed in post-production.[14]

Patriot Games was the first movie to be allowed to film at the George Bush Center for Intelligence, CIA Headquarters.[15]

Filming also took place at Aldwych underground station for a sequence later in the film.[16] Harrison Ford accidentally hit Sean Bean with a boat hook while shooting the final scene; Bean has a scar over his eye as a result.[17]

Test audiences responded negatively to the original ending, which had Jack Ryan and Sean Miller fighting underwater. The ending was re-shot with a more explosive finale.[18][19]

The numerous changes between the film and the novel caused Clancy to distance himself from the film production.[20] Clancy was unhappy with the script and during production asked for his name to be taken off the film. He complained that the final attack scene was "unrealistic" and that he had not been shown any rushes. He said he was not sure a film would be made of Clear and Present Danger "because I think Patriot Games will turn out so bad."[21]

On June 9, 1992, the original motion picture soundtrack was released by the RCA Records music label. The film's musical score was composed by James Horner and contains musical references to works by Aram Khachaturian (Adagio from "Gayane" Suite) and Dmitri Shostakovich (Symphony No. 5, 3rd mvt.). A music video is shown in an early scene featuring Clannad's song "Theme from Harry's Game", originally made for an ITV drama about The Troubles in 1982. All other vocal performances featured on the soundtrack were performed by Maggie Boyle.[22]

In 2013, a 2-disc expanded soundtrack album was released by La-La Land Records. Limited to 3000 copies, the album contains over 50 minutes of previously unreleased music (including cues by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and John Philip Sousa).[23]

Despite receiving generally positive reviews, the film garnered controversy during its release, from Tom Clancy disowning the film, to critics complaining it was too different from the book.[25][26][27] Nonetheless the film has earned a 73% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 40 reviews. The site's consensus states: "Patriot Games doesn't win many points for verisimilitude, but some entertaining set pieces -- and Harrison Ford in the central role -- more than compensate for its flaws."[28]

Roger Ebert called it "absorbing" while also commenting how actor Harrison Ford "once again demonstrates what a solid, convincing actor he is".[24] Chris Hicks of the Deseret News mentioned how director Noyce gave the film "flourish and tension" while star Harrison Ford injected "a commanding sense of decency and humanity to the role of CIA analyst Jack Ryan, making it his own."[29]

The film was a financial success, debuting at the number one position for the weekend of June 5, 1992.[30] During that weekend, the film grossed $18,511,191 in business showing at 2,365 locations.[3] The film's revenue dropped by 39.5% in its second week of release, earning $11,208,134. For that particular weekend, the film remained in 1st place with an increased theater count of 2,396. Patriot Games went on to top out domestically at $83,351,587 in ticket sales and $94,700,000 in foreign business for a worldwide total of $178,051,587 through an initial 9-week theatrical run.[3] For 1992 as a whole, the film would cumulatively rank at a box office performance position of 14.[31]