Съёмки и происшествия на площадке фильма «Полёт Феникса» (2004)

2004 film by John Moore
Director John Moore scouted locations in Morocco and Australia before looking at, and quickly choosing, Namibia as the crash site. "Where most of the film takes place, was only a 20 minute drive from the coastal town of Swakopmund." The Namib Desert location caused problems: cameras and other equipment had to be constantly cleaned of sand, and a "couple of hundred people were employed as 'dune groomers'" so that visual continuity could be maintained. Concluding the aerial filming sequences, the flying C 119G N15501 suffered a long gash under the right wing when a film truck backed under it and its driver misjudged the truck's height. A repair crew was flown in, the damaged segment re skinned and the aircraft flown back across the Atlantic. On June 3, 2004, camera operator and second unit cinematographer Ciaran Barry was "filming behind a plywood barrier intended to protect his equipment" when an 800 pound "fiberglass model plane propelled down an elevated track, bounced off a sand dune in the Namibian desert and crashed into his hut." For the latter, in October 2009 a Los Angeles jury awarded Barry $3.95 million in damages for broken legs and neurological damage he received during the accident; $1.3 million of the amount was awarded for lost future income. The documentary was not included in the 2006 Blu ray release.

The film grossed $21,009,180 at the box office in the United States and another $14,012,317 outside the US, which brings the worldwide total of $35,021,497. On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 47 out of 100, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale. The main criticism for the film was its similarity to the original. John Anderson from Newsday said, "if you've seen the original, there's absolutely no difference in what happens. And very little reason to check it out." Aerofiles, a non commercial website focusing on North American aviation history, called the film "perhaps the worst remake ever of a classic film." Stephen Holden of The New York Times said the film is a "rickety update of the far superior 1965 movie" that "throws in every cheap trick in the manual to pump up your heartbeat [and] is so manipulative that the involuntary jolts of adrenaline it produces make you feel like a fool." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times gave the film two out of four stars, writing "I'm not recommending it for those who know the original, but it might work nicely enough for those who have not." The film did receive some praise. Scott Brown from Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B grade, saying "refreshingly, it's actually about action, albeit arbitrary action, and how it defines us and keeps us alive." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times gave the film four stars out of five, calling it "a worthy remake".