Tagline: Share yourself.
FBI agents (Bruce Willis and Radha Mitchell) investigate the mysterious murder of a college student linked to the man who helped create a high-tech surrogate phenomenon that allows people to purchase unflawed robotic versions of themselves—fit, good looking remotely controlled machines that ultimately assume their life roles—enabling people to experience life vicariously from the comfort and safety of their own homes. The murder spawns a quest for answers: in a world of masks, who’s real and who can you trust?
First the computer. Then email, tiny cell phones and the Internet. Today, sexy robotic surrogates fill in for their less attractive human counterparts—regular people who no longer have to venture out into the real world themselves. In the world of “SURROGATES,” has technology gone too far?
“The premise of the movie is that surrogacy has taken over the world like cell phones and computers,” says director Jonathan Mostow. “Surrogates are new devices that offer users the opportunity to experience life vicariously from the comfort and safety of their own homes. In our film, surrogates represent the ultimate freedom, from both physical harm and the mental toll of everyday life. Pleasure is achievable simply by plugging in. “But for some, surrogacy feels like the abandonment of humanity itself,”
Mostow continues. “In a world where actual physical contact is increasingly rare, does the very notion of love threaten to lose its meaning? Those are some of the ideas we explore in our story.”
First-time author Robert Venditti came up with the unique premise while working at Top Shelf Publications in their shipping warehouse in suburban Atlanta. Looking for a new spin on the graphic novel, Venditti recalled a sociology book he had read for one of his graduate school courses which depicted “an actual study of people who played one of those early community-type online games,” says Venditti. “I was fascinated by how these people just became so involved in this game, creating these alternate personas for themselves. They became so identified with them that they would lose their jobs, their marriages, because they just couldn’t separate their lives from this persona that they created. It was an idea that stuck with me—the basic human desire to be something other than oneself.”
Read the Full Production Notes
Surrogates
Starring by: Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames, Radha Mitchell, Rosamund Pike, Ned Vaughn, James Ginty, Boris Kodjoe
Directed by: Jonathan Mostow
Screenplay by: Michael Ferris, John Brancat
Release: September. 25, 2009
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, disturbing images, language, sexuality and a drug-related scene.
Studio: Touchstone Pictures
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $38,577,772 (63.7%)
Foreign: $21,978,582 (36.3%)
Total: $60,556,354 (Worldwide)