A decade after Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk premiered at the New York Film Festival, Ang Lee’s 120fps gamble still feels like a strange, brave detour in modern movies. The 2016 war drama adapted Ben Fountain’s novel, but the format became the story: only a few theaters could show it as intended, and the reactions split almost immediately. Here is the trivia behind that experiment.
Only five theaters could show it as Lee intended
Because of the complexity of the high frame rate and the cost of installing projection equipment, only five theaters globally were equipped to present the film at its highest resolution and maximum frame rate: two in the United States and one each in Taipei, Beijing, and Shanghai. The world premiere used a roughly 300-seat AMC Lincoln Square because Alice Tully Hall was too large to get the correct distance between the dual laser projectors and the screen.
Lee had 49 days and almost no retakes
Principal photography began in the second week of April 2015 in Locust Grove, Georgia, with scenes in Atlanta, Morocco, and downtown Atlanta. Shooting took place for 49 days. Because of the complexity of shooting at a very high frame rate, Lee could not afford to do many takes even for a single scene, so he rehearsed each scene beforehand and held regular morning meetings with key crew members.
The cast could not wear make-up
Shooting close-ups in 3D at high resolution meant the cast could not wear make-up and could not deliver less-than-authentic performances. Make-up artist Luisa Abel spent months on their skin tones. Lee said Abel found this silicone-based makeup because ‘we found that it can see through skin.’
War scenes went first-person, not shaky
For the war sequences, Lee strayed from the usual practice of moving cameras to create confusion. He shot mostly from the protagonist’s point-of-view to capture realism and look more authentic. The production also had to rethink lighting, because the higher frame rates needed extra lights.
The edit took over a year and finished day before the premiere
Editor Tim Squyres, who worked on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain, and Life of Pi, took over a year to complete the film. It was finished just a day before its world premiere in New York City on October 14. To accommodate the wide release, versions included 120 fps in 2D, 60 fps in 3D, and the standard 24 fps.
First screening reaction was decidedly mixed
Variety reported that the reaction from the first screening was decidedly mixed, with comments ranging from ‘it was flat’ to ‘nothing happened.’ The premiere itself required a special installation, including two Christie Mirage 4K HDR laser projectors, a first for any theater, with 7thSense’s Media Server and RealD’s 3D system on a 42-by-19-foot Ultimate Screen.
Reviews split on the frame rate
The film has a 44% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 161 reviews. A. O. Scott said the frame rate fell into an uncanny valley between cinema and virtual reality, while Owen Gleiberman called it ‘a highly original, heartfelt, and engrossing story.’ That split captures the divide at the heart of the experiment.
The 4K disc runs at 60 fps, not 120
On February 14, 2017, the film was released on DVD, Blu-ray, and an Ultra HD combo pack. The 4K UHD version presents the film at 60 frames per second in 2D, so home viewers did not get the 120 fps theatrical showcase. The box office was also quiet: $2 million in the United States and Canada, $29 million elsewhere, against a production budget of $40 million.
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Facts from Wikipedia: Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Film images from TMDB. This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.
