| The Lawnmower Man | |
|---|---|
&sq=Qlik&lang=&file=File:Lawnmower_Man.jpg) Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Brett Leonard |
| Screenplay by | Brett Leonard Gimel Everett |
| Based on | "The Lawnmower Man" by Stephen King [a] |
| Produced by | Gimel Everett Milton Subotsky Masao Takiyama |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Russell Carpenter |
| Edited by | Alan Baumgarten Lisa Bromwell (director's cut) |
| Music by | Dan Wyman |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema (United States) First Independent Films (United Kingdom)[1] |
Release date |
|
Running time | 108 minutes 142 minutes (director's cut)[3] |
| Countries | United States United Kingdom Japan |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $10 million[2][4] |
| Box office | $150 million[5] |
The Lawnmower Man is a 1992 science fiction horror film directed by Brett Leonard, written by Leonard and Gimel Everett, and starring Jeff Fahey as Jobe Smith, an intellectually disabled gardener, and Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Lawrence "Larry" Angelo, a scientist who decides to experiment on him in an effort to give him greater intelligence by stimulating his brain using nootropic drugs and virtual reality computer simulations. The experiments give Jobe superhuman abilities, but also increase his aggression, turning him into a man obsessed with evolving into a digital being.
The film was originally marketed as the adaptation of a 1975 short story by Stephen King, which featured a Pan-worshipping satyr using his mystical powers to operate a landscaping business and mow lawns. Allied Vision began developing the film after a planned adaptation of King’s book Night Shift (1978), an anthology the story was published in. However, it struggled to expand King’s original story into a feature film and instead rewrote an unrelated screenplay entitled CyberGod into an adaptation. The final film bears little resemblance to the original story beyond a single sequence of the antagonist telekinetically using a lawn mower to murder a character named “Harold Parkette.”[6] Because of the deviation from his story, King successfully sued to have his name removed from the film, which was originally titled Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man. King won further damages when his name was included in the title of the home video release.[7]
A sequel, Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace, was released in 1996, with Austin O'Brien as the only returning actor from the original film.[8]
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- ^ "The Lawnmower Man (1992)". BBFC. Retrieved 4 November 2021.
- ^ a b The Lawnmower Man at Box Office Mojo
- ^ Listed as 104 and 137 minutes respectively on PAL releases due to 4% speedup
- ^ The Lawnmower Man at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
grosswas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
:0was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Stephen King wins lawsuit". Ew.com. Retrieved 9 May 2022.
- ^ "Was the Lawnmower Man sequel really more boring than watching grass grow? (Yes, there was a sequel.)". SYFY Official Site. 2021-01-12. Retrieved 2023-04-11.