Fallen (2016 film)


Fallen is a 2016 American romantic fantasy drama film directed by Scott Hicks, based on Lauren Kate’s 2009 novel of same name. The film stars Addison Timlin, Jeremy Irvine, Harrison Gilbertson, and Joely Richardson.
The film was released on November 10, 2016 in certain countries including Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore by Lotus Entertainment. It released to theatres in the United States on September 8, 2017 by Vertical Entertainment.

Plot

Lucinda "Luce" Price is sent to Sword and Cross Academy for troubled young teens after she is blamed for the death of a boy named Trevor who perishes in a fire started by mysterious shadows that Luce sees after kissing him. Luce feels cursed, blaming herself for Trevor’s death.
Upon arriving at her new school, Luce meets various students, including Cameron "Cam,” who has taken an interest in her; Arriane Alter, who takes Luce under her wing; Molly Zane, who harasses Luce; Pennyweather "Penn,” who befriends Luce; and Daniel, a brooding boy to whom Luce is instantly attracted. She also meets Miss Sophia, a religious studies teacher. During a session, the school psychiatrist tells Lucinda she can leave if she takes antipsychotics.
During detention, picking up trash, Luce is almost crushed by a falling statue of an avenging angel. Later, Cam flirts with Luce before inviting her to a party in the woods. At the party, Luce is attracted to Cam, but can’t shake the feeling of an deep and unusual connection to Daniel, despite his attempts to brush her off. Molly shows up and proceeds to harass and almost kill Luce before Arriane intervenes. As Luce leaves, she sees the "shadows" again.
Luce overhears Miss Sophia telling Daniel that Cam may have been behind the angel statue almost falling on Luce. She expresses fear for Luce because she is unbaptized. The two realize that Luce is listening to them, and Daniel follows Luce outside. They walk together and he admits that during class he was working on a graphic novel. In the story a boy and a girl are in love with each other, but are cursed such that every time they kiss, the girl dies; she then reincarnates, meets the boy 17 years later, and they fall in love and kiss again, only for the cycle to repeat endlessly each 17 years.
Cam takes Luce to a club on her birthday and they kiss, only to be violently interrupted by Daniel, who yells that he had told Cam to stay away from Luce, and accuses him of still being “with Lucifer.” Luce, flees and tells Penn what happened, confiding that she suspects Cam and she have been reincarnated. Penn and her friend Todd sneak into the library with Luce and search the computer with a facial recognition tool; they discover a photo from 1854 of Daniel and Luce, and Luce again has a flash of memory, seeing herself and Daniel posing for the photo in 1854. As Penn leaves to retrieve the photo from the printer, Luce sees the "shadows" again. Another mysterious fire breaks out; it engulfs the library and kills Todd. Daniel rescues an unconscious Luce from the fire.
Later Luce finds Daniel on a roof top, and he reveals that they are the boy and girl from his graphic novel story. Daniel further reveals that he is a fallen angel, which explains his immortality. The two kiss, but Cam appears, telling Luce that because she has not been baptised, Lucifer will come for her. He tries to convince Luce to pick him instead of Daniel, but Daniel whisks Luce away and takes her to Miss Sophia, leaving to fight Cam and stop Lucifer from coming for Luce.
As the two fight, Cam reveals that he was not the one behind Luce's murders; meanwhile, Sophia kills Penn. Luce screams, which brings Daniel to her aid, to protect her from Miss Sophia, who was actually the one trying to kill Luce. Miss Sophia justifies her murders by explaining that, with Luce gone, Daniel would have been forced to choose a side and order would have been restored. The shadows show up behind Miss Sophia as she is talking and consume her.
Daniel explains to a shaken Luce that her being unbaptized would make her next death permanent; Sophia thought this would cause Daniel to choose Heaven. He tells her that Lucifer will indeed come for her, and that he must take her somewhere safe. They declare their love for each other as they leave to find safe haven from Lucifer.

Cast

Development

Lotus Entertainment is the producer in charge of taking the adaptation to the cinema, initially when the novel was bought in December 2009, the producing company Walt Disney Pictures was the first to buy the whole saga since Fallen ones consists of 5 books and an annex, In total 6, but by the middle of 2013, Disney declined and withdrew from the project, leaving all production to Lotus Entertainment. The post-production began in May 2014 after the recordings were finished in Budapest, Hungary.

Pre-production

Pre-production started from September 2013, while recordings began in February 2014 in Budapest, Hungary, recordings were spread over 7 months of recordings, 5 months of tape recordings and 3 months of voice recordings, later the film had been finished in April 2016, the film was two years in pre-production. Origo Film Group studios in Budapest were chosen for the film's production, work on the "angels" flight scenes and the construction of some planes of exterior areas, in the studios, could be analyzed and viewed detail the elaboration and the final work before the introduction of the special effects.

Casting

On August 16, 2013, two main characters were announced, Addison Timlin would play Lucinda "Luce" Price and Jeremy Irvine would play Daniel Grigori, both were released by writer Lauren Kate on their website. Later on September 25, 2013 it was officially announced that the Australian Harrison Gilbertson would play Cameron "Cam" Briel, the third main character. On January 19, 2014 it was officially confirmed in Australia "IF" magazine on its website that Australia's Sianoa Smit-McPhee would play "Molly", the antagonistic character.
On February 17, it was announced by a Twitter message in the official account of the actress Hermione Corfield her stay in Budapest, days later would confirm her participation in the adaptation of Fallen side in the role of "Gabbe." On March 1, 2014 actress Juliet Aubrey confirmed her involvement in the adaptation as Luce's mother, Doreen Price. On February 18, 2014 was officially announced that actress Daisy Head would play Arriane Alter, this was released by the father of the actress via Twitter. On April 9, 2014, the remaining members of the rest of the cast were officially announced on the website of Fallen Writer, Lauren Kate. The actor Malachi Kirby will play Roland Sparks, the English actress Lola Kirke will be the one of life to Penn and Chris Ashby like Todd Hammond, the other actors that already had been confirmed like Hermione Corfield, Daisy Head and Sianoa Smit-McPhee, have also been confirmed by the writer officially on their website, later the rest of the remaining characters were officially confirmed.
Curiously, the actor Jeremy Irvine who incarnated fallen angel, was involved in the casting process for other young adult franchises that became adapted into films, such as, The Hunger Games for the role of Peeta Mellark and in Divergent for the role of Tobias 'Four' Eaton; both were rejected by him. Later in the auditions of Fallen, Irvine was fascinated by the script and chose to stay with the project.

Filming

After the change of producers, the producers and the director Scott Hicks began the search of the set, the chosen place was the European country of Hungary; Approximately 2 km from the capital of Hungary was the place chosen to begin the recordings, but were different places where Dark was recorded, the first was Tura Castle, would be the main enclosure that would conform to Sword & Cross, together with the castle Wenckheim-kastély also located in Hungary, the library would be another enclosure apart where they were filmed, the three buildings formed the reformatory. Subsequently, filming date had been established at the beginning of September, but was delayed until February 9, 2014 in Budapest. There were five months of recordings plus two extra weeks of voice recording between the end of July and August.
The first building forms the classrooms, the reception and the bedrooms, the second building houses the swimming pool and the third building houses the library; it is noteworthy that the cemetery that is narrated in the book was omitted.

Marketing and release

By the end of 2016, the trailer for Fallen leaked in the Philippines, the first country to be chosen for the premiere of the film, with low resolution and poor quality of image and sound. Lotus Entertainment had to re-edit the trailer, modify small scenes and include credits at the end, once it had leaked.
The leak forced the company to set a release date. It started a speculation about the delay the film suffered for years. However it was known that Fallen did not have a distribution company. Later Relativity Media, directed by Ryan Kavanaugh, was interested in distributing it, after several days of negotiation. In the end the release date was greenlit, with the premiere taking place at the Philippines.
In December 2016, the film was promoted at the Brazilian Comic-Con Experiencie in São Paulo, where Fallen had its own panel. A press conference took place with Lauren Kate and Addison Timlin. During the event the Brazilian trailer was shown for the fans.
The film was released in the United States in 2017 by Vertical Entertainment. It then was made available on digital platforms on September 8, 2017, and to DVD on October 10, 2017.

Reception

Critical reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 7% based on 14 reviews, with an average rating of 3.2/10.

Sequels

In December 2014, it was announced that Torment, the second installment in the Fallen book series, was in development. It is unknown whether the last two novels, Passion and Rapture, and the spin-off novel, Unforgiven, will be adapted as well. In 2017, producer Kevan Van Thompson asked the fans if they want an adaptation of Torment, leaving the possibility open.
On November 9, 2019 producer Kevan Van Thompson that he "needs a script for the next chapter in the Fallen series. Dying to make it for those amazing fans." Which was met with an instant viral response from fans, leaving the possibility for a series or movie adaptation open inspiring those fans to create the hashtag targeting streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, FX and Disney to pick it up.