The Rock (film)

The Rock
Theatrical release poster
Directed byMichael Bay
Screenplay by
Story by
  • David Weisberg
  • Douglas S. Cook
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyJohn Schwartzman
Edited byRichard Francis-Bruce
Music by
Production
companies
Distributed byBuena Vista Pictures Distribution
Release date
  • June 7, 1996 (1996-06-07)
Running time
136 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$75 million[2]
Box office$335.6 million[2]

The Rock is a 1996 American action thriller film directed by Michael Bay, produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, and written by David Weisberg, Douglas S. Cook and Mark Rosner. It stars Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage and Ed Harris, with supporting roles played by Michael Biehn, William Forsythe, David Morse, and John Spencer. Connery plays a former SAS captain and Cage an FBI chemist, who must rescue hostages from a rogue group of Force Recon Marines on Alcatraz Island.

The Rock was dedicated to the memory of Simpson,[3] who died five months before its release. It was released by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution on June 7, 1996. It received positive reviews and was nominated for Best Sound at the 69th Academy Awards. It earned over $335 million at the box office on a production budget of $75 million, becoming the fourth highest-grossing film of 1996. The Rock was remade in India in 2003 as Qayamat: City Under Threat.[4][5]

The Rock was the basis for false descriptions of the Iraqi chemical weapons program. Britain's Secret Intelligence Service was led to believe Saddam Hussein was continuing to produce weapons of mass destruction by a false agent who based his reports on The Rock, according to the Chilcot Inquiry.

  1. ^ "The Rock (15)". British Board of Film Classification. June 4, 1996. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016. Retrieved January 13, 2016.
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference mojo was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Maslin, Janet (June 7, 1996). "FILM REVIEW;Break into Alcatraz? Why Not?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 25, 2020. Retrieved February 24, 2021.
  4. ^ India Today. Thomson Living Media India Limited. July 2003. Archived from the original on September 3, 2024. Retrieved April 1, 2024.
  5. ^ "'Qayamat: City Under Threat' copied from 'The Rock'". Bollywood Copy - Not everything is original in Bollywood. August 8, 2017. Archived from the original on December 28, 2021. Retrieved December 28, 2021.