Thunderbirds

Thunderbirds (2004)

Climb into the driver's seat of the most advanced rescue vehicles on the planet.

Dangerous missions are the bread and butter of the Thunderbirds, a high-tech secret force employed by the government. Led by Jeff Tracy (Bill Paxton), the Thunderbirds are at the top of their game, but their nemesis, The Hood (Ben Kingsley), has landed on their island and is attempting a coup by using the team's rescue vehicles. He'll soon discover that the Thunderbirds won't go down.

Date of release
2004-07-23
TMDB
5.1 / 10 (329)
Runtime
1h 35m
Genres
Action, Adventure, Comedy, Family
Director
Jonathan Frakes

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: Thunderbirds
  • Filmed in: London, Pinewood Studios, and Seychelles

Thunderbirds is a 2004 science fantasy film directed by Jonathan Frakes, written by William Osborne and Michael McCullers, and based on the television series of the same name created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. The film's plot concerns the Hood, who traps International Rescue (IR) leader Jeff Tracy and four of his sons on board the damaged Thunderbird 5 to steal the other Thunderbird vehicles and commit crimes for which IR will be blamed, prompting Jeff's youngest son Alan and his friends Tin-Tin and Fermat to stop him.

Production

Thunderbirds was the third theatrical release based upon the series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. It was preceded by Thunderbirds Are Go in 1966 and Thunderbird 6 in 1968, both films using the Supermarionation production techniques of the series.

Development of the film started in the mid-1990s when PolyGram Filmed Entertainment purchased the rights to the entire ITC Entertainment library, which included the original Thunderbirds series. Seeing the big-screen potential of the series, Peter Hewitt was signed on to direct, while Karey Kirkpatrick was signed on to write.

Hewitt was replaced by Jonathan Frakes, a big fan of the original series whose credentials included another family science fiction film, Clockstoppers.

Mike Trim, who had worked on the original Thunderbirds show, was hired as a concept artist. Ultimately, his work, which included a design for a new pod vehicle named the "Telehandler", went unused.

The film was the first family film of Brady Corbet, who played protagonist Alan Tracy.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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