The Big Picture
- Michael Mann takes responsibility for the failure of his film Blackhat, admitting that he didn’t realize the script wasn’t ready to shoot.
- The subject of the film, cybercrime, was ahead of its time and now more relevant than ever with advancements in information security.
- Despite its box office flop, Blackhat still offers relevant themes and a talented cast, including Viola Davis and Holt McCallany.
No matter how popular and respected a filmmaker becomes, they’re hardly immune to miscalculating the potential of an idea. For Heat and Ferrari director Michael Mann, the title that became a bump on the road was Blackhat. The 2015 movie starred Chris Hemsworth (Thor: Love & Thunder) as a cybercriminal who is hired by the FBI to find a data-stealing hacker. The movie flopped hard at the box office and received just a 33% approval rate on Rotten Tomatoes. In an interview with Variety, Mann fully owns up to the failure.
In the interview, the director revealed that he thinks of Blackhat’s failure as “his fault,” because he failed to notice that the script written by Morgan Davis Foehl “was not ready to shoot.” However, Mann also stands behind the story, which now sounds more timely than ever. He went on to say:
“The subject may have been ahead of the curve, because there were a number of people who thought this was all fantasy. Wrong. Everything is stone-cold accurate.”
Blackhat Was Early in Many Ways
Even though we mostly talk about AI on social media nowadays, information security has also greatly developed over the last decade. What sounded like sci-fi movie stuff at the time of the Blackhat release is now completely within the realm of possibilities of online data, and the very basics of information security that big companies need to take into account. Maybe now, eight years later, the movie can come off as more compelling than the first time around. Of course, it will still be a box-office bomb – it grossed less than $20 million against a budget of $70 million – but we may end up realizing that Mann was not that off his mark when he decided to do Blackhat.
The title of the movie features an expression that was hardly used outside the data security conversations, and today you’re much more likely to find someone who knows what the term is: a word that describes a hacker who uses their ability for their own benefit or to commit crimes.
At the same time, even in its worst form, you can trust a Michael Mann film to bring some relevant elements to the table, including morals and ethics of modern society, like where do we draw the line at following the law, and why some people see no problem in breaking it, how violence can shape an individual or an entire group, and many others.
The cast of Blackhat also features Viola Davis (The Suicide Squad), Tang Wei (Decision to Leave), Leehom Wang (The Treasured Voice) and Holt McCallany (Mindhunter). Remember it by watching the trailer below:
