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The race-against-time thriller “Eagle Eye” reunites actor Shia LaBeouf, director D.J. Caruso and executive producer Steven Spielberg for the first time since their sleeper hit “Disturbia.”

In “Eagle Eye,” Jerry Shaw (LaBeouf) and Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) are two strangers thrown together by a mysterious phone call from a woman they have never met. Threatening their lives and their family, she pushes Jerry and Rachel into a series of increasingly dangerous situations using the technology of everyday life to track and control their every move.  As the situation escalates, these two ordinary people become the country's most wanted fugitives, who must now work together to discover what is really happening.  Fighting for their lives, they become pawns of a faceless enemy who seems to have limitless power to manipulate everything they do.

DreamWorks Pictures Presents A Kurtzman/Orci Production A D.J. Caruso Film “Eagle Eye” starring Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Rosario Dawson, Michael Chiklis, Anthony Mackie and Billy Bob Thornton. The film is directed by D. J. Caruso. Story by Dan McDermott. Screenplay by John Glenn & Travis Adam Wright and Hillary Seitz and Dan McDermott. The film is produced by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Patrick Crowley. The executive producers are Steven Spielberg and Edward L. McDonnell. The director of photography is Dariusz Wolski, ASC. The production designer is Tom Sanders. The film is edited by Jim Page. The costume designer is Marie-Sylvie Deveau. The visual effects supervisor is Jim Rygiel. The music is by Brian Tyler. This film has been rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence and for language.

About the Film

At the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Geoff Callister is at the center of a critical decision: whether to bomb an important target, a wanted Afghan terrorist. Without total confirmation of his identity, the President orders the attack to proceed at what appears to be a funeral. The bombing triggers a rise in terrorist animosity against the U.S. from overseas, as well as a possible threat from within. . .

In Chicago, a 23-year-old slacker named Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf), an employee at the local Copy Cabana shop, is suddenly called home – his identical twin brother, Ethan, an Air Force public relations officer and pride of the family, has been killed in a car accident.

Meanwhile, single mom Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) is sending her 8-year-old son, Sam, off to Washington, D.C., to play trumpet with his school band at the Kennedy Center – their first separation. During a night out with the girls, she receives an odd call on her cell phone: a strange woman telling Rachel to follow her instructions implicitly or Sam – now unexpectedly visible on a wall of TV screens across the street – will die.

Upon his return to Chicago, Jerry finds his normally empty bank account now contains $750,000, and his sparsely furnished apartment is crammed with do-it-yourself terrorist supplies. He, too, receives a call from the same woman, warning him to run or he’ll be arrested. Before he can leave, he is apprehended.

In an FBI interrogation room, Agent Thomas Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton) questions the young man, who insists he has been framed. When he is left alone in an office, Jerry is once again contacted by the mysterious woman, who frees him by swinging a nearby construction crane to crash through the window and instructs him to jump.

He is led by the woman to a Porsche Cayenne – where Rachel, whom he has never met, is waiting for him. Suspicious of each other from the start, they soon realize they are both at the mercy of this strangely disembodied voice, who is tracking their every move, and has seemingly limitless control over their fates.

About the Production

The idea for “Eagle Eye” was hatched several years ago from the mind of executive producer Steven Spielberg. “Steven’s initial concept focused on the idea that technology is everywhere,” says co-producer Pete Chiarelli. “It’s all around us – what would happen if it turned against you? What if the technology that surrounds us, that we love and depend on, suddenly was used on us in ways that could cause harm and was completely out of our control?”

“Steven always wanted people to walk out of the theater and turn off their cell phones and BlackBerrys, because they were so scared,” writer/producer Alex Kurtzman recalls – much in the way audiences feared swimming in the ocean after they saw Spielberg’s summer blockbuster “Jaws” in 1975.

The story was in development for several years, because at the time Spielberg first conceived the idea, “he thought that it would seem too much like science fiction,” Kurtzman adds. “It would have stretched credibility because the technology wasn’t yet as integrated into our society as it is today.”

In early 2006, Spielberg brought the project to Kurtzman and his writing partner, Robert Orci, the creative team behind “Mission: Impossible III,” the upcoming “Star Trek” and another Spielberg project, “Transformers” and its upcoming sequel, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”

“The trick now was figuring out a way into the story,” says Kurtzman, “making a film that would be more than simply an action picture with chase scenes and explosions. Ultimately, it was about bringing a human perspective to the whole story.”

The story is about two strangers who are thrown together, framed for crimes they didn’t commit, who are fighting for their lives while trying to prove their innocence. Its non-stop suspense is driven like a speeding locomotive as Jerry and Rachel become the pawns of a faceless enemy who seems to have limitless power to manipulate everything they do.

Such an approach, Kurtzman notes, “makes the film timeless, because the characters could be in any time period, and the audience can relate to them no matter when or where they’re from. They’re just ordinary people thrown into a totally extraordinary circumstance way beyond their control, forced to do things they don’t understand and have to find out why they have been chosen as the movie goes along – which the audience does along with them.”

“Eagle Eye” marks Kurtzman’s and Orci’s first foray into producing. “It’s been amazing to see this story evolve from an idea Steven brought to us two years ago. Watching the expanding scope of this movie has been tremendous.”

The film’s star, Shia LaBeouf, expresses similar feelings. “I’ve never been this close to the formation of an entire project. The writing and rewriting is all very new to me. It’s like raising a puppy. There’s a lot of pride attached, especially when you’re working with friends and everyone’s rooting for each other.”

While Spielberg originally intended to direct the film himself, he eventually changed course to focus on other projects, especially the large-scale action adventure “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” Meanwhile, director D.J. Caruso was shooting his 2007 hit, “Disturbia,” for Spielberg’s DreamWorks SKG. “I showed him the rough cut of ‘Disturbia,’ and he said, ‘You know, we have something for you.’ I read the script, and I could see why, when he initially thought of the idea, it was way ahead of its time. I loved it immediately.”

For many young directors, shooting a film with a master like Spielberg looking over your shoulder might seem a little intimidating. “There’s always the added pressure of knowing this was a story Steven had gestating up in his brain for several years,” Caruso notes. “But he really made me feel at ease. He told me it was important that a filmmaker make every project his own. He said ‘I want you to take this idea and make it yours.’ He trusted me to go in there and do it and make it my own, and still honor his story. I’ve never enjoyed a more fruitful collaboration.”

With a story as complex as “Eagle Eye,” it was important to have a director who could bring balance to a film that featured not only intense action, but rich characters. “D.J. brings an incredible sense of history to a project like this,” notes executive producer Edward L. McDonnell. “He’s worked in a variety of genres already. This is more than just a character piece, or just an action piece, it has complexity in the storytelling. His ability to streamline a story for us, to make it understandable and accessible, comes from his previous experience.”

“D.J. has shot so much over his life as a director as he came up through the ranks,” adds co-producer Chiarelli. “It’s great for us, because we got to take advantage of somebody who had so much experience who knew what he was doing and made the movie look great, made the action huge, but still managed to pull amazing performances out of the actors.”

Cast and Characters

Shia LaBeouf plays Jerry Shaw, the less accomplished half of a set of identical twins. “When we first meet him, he’s in the thick of what his life has become,” LaBeouf explains. “He’s an underachiever in a family of seeming overachievers. His twin brother was this overachieving perfectionist, who had a real easy way with life and was extremely bright, efficient, and dependable and secure – everything Jerry is not.”

Jerry had, much to the chagrin of his demanding father, left Stanford to travel and is, at present, working at a low-end copy store. “He’s the sort of guy who exercises his freedom and doesn’t necessarily believe that you need to go to college and do what everyone in society says you need to do,” notes Caruso. “He’s exploring himself right now and trying to learn what he wants to do with his life – he’s the complete opposite of his twin brother.”

An average guy, Jerry is suddenly forced to develop a great deal of character – and fast. “He’s forced to confront some things in his life over the course of the movie – which takes place over about a day and a half – that makes him grow from being a kid to being a man,” says Chiarelli.

The filmmakers certainly felt the character and their star shared such everyman qualities. “At the time D.J. first mentioned the project to me, we were in Germany doing promotions for ‘Disturbia,’” recalls LaBeouf, who was about to tackle two other Spielberg projects – “Transformers” and “Indiana Jones.”

The role is LaBeouf’s first truly adult portrayal. “It’s been great to see his progression,” Caruso says. “He was 19 when we started ‘Disturbia,’ and now he’s 21. I look at that film, then I look at ‘Transformers,’ and now ‘Eagle Eye,’ and I realize they were all only a year or so apart in his life, but he looks five or six years older. I have him playing a 23-year-old and here he is, a mature young man who, at certain times in the movie has discussions with a young mother in her early 30s about what she should do and how important life is. I think that’s amazing for someone like Shia, who a year ago was playing a teenager. He is definitely mature beyond his years.”

“I think this is a defining role for Shia,” adds producer Patrick Crowley. “It marks his emergence as a leading man.”

LaBeouf also won over his co-star. “I love Shia,” says Michelle Monaghan “He’s just a dynamite actor and so passionate about his work; I respect him deeply and we had a lot of fun together.”

Of course, having an actor and director who had already worked together was an added benefit. “They have a shorthand,” says Chiarelli. “They’re like an old married couple. They’ll just look at each other, like, ‘I want a take that’s more like. . . .,’ and Shia would nod, like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.’ Nobody else quite understood them in the same way.”

Adds LaBeouf, “We’d communicate with a finger point or a hand movement, and then we’d be back to the scene again.”

Jerry’s counterpart, Rachel, is a single mom with an ex-husband who spends some time with his son, but has left all of the real responsibilities of parenting to Rachel. “She’s just trying to get through her day-to-day life with her son while working hard,” Monaghan explains.

Rachel sends her eight-year-old son, Sam, off on a trip to Washington, and finally has a day off, which includes a night out with the girls at a bar. But the day off turns into the worst day off ever, notes Monaghan. “She steps out of the bar to take a phone call she thinks is from her son but the voice on the other end is a woman, who asks ‘What would you do to save your son’s life?’ I obviously have no idea what she’s talking about, and am completely bewildered.”

Then she is instructed to look up at the TV monitors in a store across the street, and sees live surveillance footage of Sam on the train. “The idea of seeing your child on a train, where you thought he was safe and you suddenly realize he’s not, is just chilling,” the actress says.

The producers were looking for an actress who could be both sweet and tough, as needed, and Monaghan fit the bill. “We had worked with her on ‘Mission: Impossible III,’ and we just found that she had all the qualities that we needed Rachel to be,” says Kurtzman. “We also had a sense of what her voice was like, which helped us a lot. Plus, she was very honest about the things that she liked and what she wanted to adjust, something we find invaluable when we want to tailor the voice precisely to the performer.”

Rachel’s resolve to do what it takes to protect Sam from disaster puts her in spots which, like the Secretary of Defense (Michael Chiklis) in the film’s opening, require her to choose between two terrible options. “It’s a very helpless situation for her,” Caruso comments, adding, “I wouldn’t mess with a mother who has been separated from her kid.”

When Jerry and Rachel meet for the first time, they immediately think the other is the source of their troubles and begin battling for their freedom. “It’s a story about people who bring certain assumptions into a situation,” says Kurtzman. “But they’re not necessarily right about what they perceive.”

They quickly realize they are both victims in a larger scenario over which they have no control, and that if they are to survive, must learn to trust one another. “It becomes apparent that the only people they can rely on to get them out of the trouble they’re in is each other,” says Crowley. “And there’s this kind of dance as they figure out how much to trust the other.”

Interestingly, their relationship is not a romantic one. “If this was an ‘80s action movie, of course, they’d sleep together in the middle of the movie, and bullets would be flying all over the place,” jokes Caruso. “But their relationship is based on the mutual respect they come to have for one another. It wasn’t a conscious choice to make it a non-romantic film. I wanted the story to unfold naturally.”

“The beautiful thing about it is that it’s not all answered here,” adds LaBeouf. “It was more powerful to be sweet than it was to be overtly sexual, which would have cheapened it. It would have been the average film. Sometimes lovers aren’t allowed to be together. That happens in life, but you rarely see it in film.” And besides, he adds, with all the action going on – to quote another Spielberg action picture – “There’s no time for romance.”

The mysterious woman’s voice whose direction Jerry and Rachel must follow or face the consequences is as confounding as her commands. “We have no idea why we’re being told to do these things, although we do know that she has significant power over us, and that we are in danger, and that people we love are also in danger if we don’t adhere to her requests,” Monaghan explains. The voice continues to request bizarre, incredible – and sometimes diabolical – behavior from Jerry and Rachel. “Where it’s coming from, we have no idea. She seems to be in every phone, car, airport screen – anything you could possibly imagine, she’s plugged into.”

The voice apparently has control over everything around them – from traffic signals that send pursuing police crashing into each other, to cranes, boats, subway cars – you name it. “Jerry doesn’t know exactly why he’s following this voice on the phone,” says Chiarelli. “He just knows that this voice is a very powerful one because it has somehow jacked into all the technology around us and is able to control things it shouldn’t be able to control.”

“There is a degree of gameplay,” adds Kurtzman. “Whoever the person is behind this mystery, she is controlling them without telling them anything other than exactly what they need to know at any given moment. So, as characters, they’re required to take huge leaps of faith. They have no idea what’s going to happen next.”

One thing they do know is that they are being pursued – doggedly – by an FBI agent named Thomas Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton). Thornton was clear that his character had to walk a fine line. “I’m a good guy, yet the audience is going to view me as a bad guy initially because I’m pursuing Jerry and Rachel,” says the actor. “You really have to tow the line as an actor. You have to be a guy who’s just doing his job.”

“Billy Bob is one of the most dynamic, unusual, cool guys I’ve ever met in my life,” says Caruso. “He comes to work in the morning, still a little bit groggy – he’s a night guy, a musician – and literally, by the time the makeup gets on, he comes out ready to roll. He’s also one of the funniest men I’ve ever met.”

Thornton brings a Texan sensibility to Morgan, something which fit the agent perfectly. “He brings all the qualities of being from the South, which you hear and feel in his performance when you listen to his language,” says Crowley.

The writers, in fact, took full advantage of Thornton’s Southern sensibilities, spending time with the actor to get a full gauge of the character. “He’s got a story for everything,” notes Kurtzman. “You get through a couple of sentences, and he says, ‘You know, that reminds me of. . . ,’ and he starts talking about some amazing experience. The more time you spend with an actor, the better it is for the filmmaker, because there is something about who they are that should saturate into the character they’re playing.”

Thornton’s enjoyable knack for ad libs was used to full advantage. “He’s so inventive, it’s never the same. It’s always a different take,” says LaBeouf. “He’s very aware and very spontaneous. The camera is able to pick up things that I can’t see sitting next to him.”

Supporting Morgan’s search – though sometimes it doesn’t appear that way – is Air Force Office of Special Investigation (OSI) Special Agent Zoe Perez, played by Rosario Dawson, who becomes involved because of Ethan, Jerry’s deceased brother, who was associated with the Air Force. “She’s a younger agent who nobody quite takes seriously,” says Chiarelli. “She has to really fight for respect from everybody, from the FBI, from people in the Air Force, in the Pentagon. So we needed somebody who is a fighter. And Rosario really nails it.”

She and Morgan eventually find they must cooperate with each other in uncovering the truth behind Ethan Shaw’s death. “Morgan is a guy who is immediately dismissive of Zoe,” says Kurtzman. “But she gets his attention very quickly. And, like Jerry and Rachel, they have to find a way to start trusting each other. Finding an actress who can hold her own against Billy Bob is a rare commodity.”

“Rosario is a terrific actor,” says Thornton who explains that in order to reflect the interagency competition, their challenge was to create an adversarial male-female relationship along the lines of the old Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn movies. The on-screen antagonism between the Arkansas native and the New York City-born Dawson belied an off-screen connection between the two actors. “She’s a New Yorker,” explains Thornton, “but she lived in Austin. So she’s a Texas girl, too.” Dawson’s mother won Thornton over by bringing home-cooked Southern meals to the set. “Her mom’s a great cook and she understands that guys from the South like things like collard greens.” Secretary of Defense Geoff Callister is played by Michael Chiklis, best known to audiences as rogue cop Vic Mackey on FX’s “The Shield.” “Callister is described as a man with a look of permanent burden on his face,” Chiklis says. “I remember growing up, with every single President, Secretary of State or other cabinet member, seeing before and after pictures of them, and every single one of them went from relatively fresh and healthy looking to gray and aged from what they’d learned and the weight of the office on them. So to play a Secretary of Defense who bears the weight of the world in his eyes was very, very interesting to me.”

“Chiklis is just wonderful,” says Kurtzman. “He’s this incredible tough guy, but even with his character on ‘The Shield,’ you can see that he has such soul. And we knew that we would need that with a character like Callister. Michael brought such humanity to the part; we needed somebody who could play that kind of arc, not a one-note performance.”

Rounding out the cast were Ethan Embry as FBI Agent Grant and Anthony Mackie as Major Bowman. “Ethan’s fantastic,” says Caruso. “Grant is an underling agent to Morgan in the FBI. He’s a guy who keeps providing the information and keeps the movie going forward. But Ethan gave Grant this wonderful life and character trait, because he’s a guy who’s a little bit nervous around his boss; he knows his boss is a hothead.”

Mackie’s Bowman is an Army intelligence officer – one of a handful of “minutemen” whose service – and previous working relationship with Jerry’s brother, Ethan – may hold the key to the mystery of what’s happening to Jerry and Rachel. The actor enjoyed his scenes with his old friend, Dawson, but was particularly tickled at working with Chiklis. “The funny thing about ‘Chick’ is that on his show, his character’s name is Mackey, so it’s cool to finally work with him,” he laughs.

Did Somebody Say “Action?”

From the start, the filmmakers were intent on making a different kind of action film. As Kurtzman points out “the audience can only be as invested in the action sequences as they are in the people who are in danger. What you rarely see in action movies is time carved out for character. If you’re not somehow in love with the characters you’re watching, you don’t really care if their lives are in danger. These two people are very normal, very down to earth. And that’s something different from your generic action movie.”

“D.J. really cares about the beats,” says LaBeouf. “And that’s rare in action films. Usually the emotion comes secondary when you have big set pieces, because that’s not what the director feels is going to sell the movie or makes for a good trailer moment. But D.J. knows the only way the action is going to work is if you feel for the characters and their situation.”

Which is not to imply that audiences won’t be getting a gigantic bang for their buck. “The first hour is like an incredible video game,” says Caruso. “Every corner you turn, you don’t really know what’s going to happen.” Adds veteran stunt coordinator Gregg Smrz, “It starts out with a bang and never slows down.”

Caruso set out to fill the film with spectacular “set pieces” – mind-blowing stunt sequences that keep audiences on the edge of their seats. As much as possible, the filmmakers went for the real McCoy, avoiding computer-generated imagery that might otherwise take the audience out of the visceral experience of the scene.

“I wanted the action to be real, because I’m a connoisseur of the old ‘70s car chases, with just plain real action,” says Caruso. “When cars crash and things blow up, I like it when it really happens and you can photograph it. I wanted to stay away from digital technology as much as I could. So when that crane comes through that building, it’s a practical crane coming through a set we built.”

Classic car chases, as in “The French Connection,” served as models for how to keep the action real. “The thing about those car chases is they never defy the laws of physics,” notes Kurtzman. “You actually feel that when a car is being hit, the people who are in the car are hurting. It feels vivid.”

Surprisingly, doing such scenes “old school” is what helps set the action in “Eagle Eye” apart from other films in the genre. “Today’s audiences compare every set piece with set pieces they’ve seen in other movies,” says veteran action producer Crowley. “So each time you do something spectacular, you raise the bar for those who come after you. I’ve done a lot of car chases. And the way to make a car chase appealing, to make it one of those stand-up-and-cheer moments, is something we spent months and months figuring out.”

The spectacular car chase involves the FBI and the Chicago police who are trying to nab Jerry and Rachel immediately after they meet, while the mysterious voice clears a path for their fast-moving Porsche Cayenne through the streets of Chicago, while their pursuers find nothing but obstacles and mayhem. The massive sequence was filmed over several weeks with a crew of 100, with downtown Los Angeles ably subbing in for Chicago.

The sequence was carefully planned, storyboarded and executed by director Caruso along with Brian and Gregg Smrz, part of a family of stunt men with three decades of experience working in film. Together they have over three hundred credits on their resume, including “Jurassic Park,” “Minority Report,” “X-Men 2,” “Live Free or Die Hard,” “Signs,” “Unbreakable,” “Superman Returns,” “Fantastic Four,” “Mission: Impossible II,” and “Transformers.” For “Eagle Eye,” Brian Smrz was enlisted as the film’s second unit director and stunt coordinator, responsible for crashing cranes, cars and cargo containers, as well as the film’s punishing car chase, while his brother Gregg worked with the main unit.

For the chase scene, Gregg Smrz estimates the production went through 38 cars. “We did four cannon rolls, two sidewinders, a bunch of hits everywhere. Every night, it was no less than five or ten cars getting into a pileup.”

Caruso also had to shoot some second unit work himself. “A lot of our action involves our characters having to be involved in the second unit shoot,” he explains. “So not only did I get to crash or flip cars, but I got to take the actors and put them in those situations.”

Both the film’s stars performed most of their own stunts. Driving, diving, jumping with their share of bumps and bruises, the two actors worked closely with the stunt coordinator and his team to ensure everything was safe. “They did 80% of their own stunts,” says Smrz, “and they did a great job.”

In many shots featuring the Porsche, it is indeed Michelle Monaghan at the wheel. “For the part she’s playing, she’s not supposed to be a great driver,” says Smrz, “so she had to be erratic with the Porsche. She did a great job, but I have to be honest with you – I was trembling when she took off!”

“She’s a warrior,” LaBeouf says of his co-star. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a woman do stunts like she does. And then she gets up and is all friendly and giggly and goes over and eats a cookie. And I’d be sitting there, my elbow hurting and she’d just turn to me and say, ‘Why don’t you just man up?’”

LaBeouf himself also took a beating – literally and figuratively – during a fight scene that takes place under the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and was filmed under the Hall of Records in downtown Los Angeles. “He did 90% of that entire fight,” notes Smrz. “I’m a huge UFC fan – I like all that fight stuff,” says the actor. “For a small, little Jewish kid to come to the set and be a superhero for five minutes – that’s great!”

The two actually relished doing stunt work. In another sequence, the pair is seen falling from their car, which has been hoisted skyward by a crane, and land in a pile of rubbish on a barge. “It was probably 72 feet up, and when they saw the stunt people do the big jump, they were actually disappointed that they were not able to do the stunts themselves,” says Caruso. “So I got them up on the stage and we jumped them out of a car about 22 feet down into an airbag.”

In a scene affectionately known to the crew as “Chutes and Ladders,” Agent Morgan pursues Jerry and Rachel through a parcel-handling facility at the airport, which was actually shot at a DHL plant in Riverside, California. Built more for boxes than bodies, the action unfolds on the three-story system of conveyor belts and chutes that wind through the massive plant. The actors and cameramen crawled along the moving belts and tumbled down the chutes, over and over for four days. “It was pretty difficult going down the big chutes,” says Monaghan. “We came out with a few bruises, but it was also a lot of fun.” Monaghan finished filming the sequence with one resolution: “I think it’s convinced me to go to stunt school so I can learn how to better pad myself and take a fall and a tumble – and have my husband join me so we can learn to have fake fights and surprise people at dinner parties.”

A Traveling Road Show

Like Jerry and Rachel, the production company hit the ground running on day one. While the story unfolds over only a couple of days, it stretches across dozens of locations in several cities and around the world. From the film’s opening sequences, at the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon, with the Secretary of Defense watching a real-time surveillance of suspicious activity in a small village on the border between Iran and Pakistan, to the relentless pursuit of Jerry and Rachel, the making of this fast-paced thriller demanded the most of everyone.

Shooting over 200 scenes, with more than 100 moves in 77 days, put the cast and crew through their paces. As Shia LaBeouf testifies, “It was a hard movie to make – in the best ways,” says the young actor. “It looks hard, with tough locations and we didn’t stop moving for 60 or 70 days. It was a caravan of human beings. There were 120 of us moving all the time.” For co-star Michelle Monaghan, the constant moving helped mirror her character’s story. “It really does keep you on the edge, getting in that car and not really knowing where you’re going every day. Every day felt bigger than the next and that proved to be very, very exciting.”

“It became sort of like an independent road picture,” says Caruso, “because we always spent one or two days in different locations and kept moving, because the characters keep moving. It actually kept the film in perspective.”

Principal photography commenced in rural Kendall County, Illinois, outside of Chicago. The company received special permission, not only to shoot underneath Commonwealth Edison’s huge high-voltage aerial transmission towers, but to shoot the scene – in which Jerry and Rachel meet an unknown man who hands them keys to a van before getting electrocuted before their eyes – with a camera mounted on a helicopter skillfully flying around the towers.

From there, the company moved to Chicago to shoot at more than a dozen locations in the course of ten days: outside Jerry’s apartment building, at the ATM that spews out Jerry’s unexpected rise in fortune, in front of Chicago’s famed “Rock n’ Roll” McDonalds, where Rachel looks up in horror to see the images of her son projected on the restaurant’s wall of monitors, and on Chicago’s elevated mass transit system.

The company shot several scenes on the nation’s third busiest mass transit system with tremendous help and cooperation from the Chicago Transit Authority. Both first and second units also shot several parts of the heart-stopping car chase in the city, including the start of the chase with Monaghan behind the wheel of the Porsche Cayenne.

There was no letting up when the company came home to Southern California. The filmmakers artfully used dozens of locations in and around Los Angeles to double for everything from an airport in Indiana to a small village in the Middle East.

Moving from location to location was labor intensive for all concerned. Each location had to be dressed and built in some cases. Production designer Tom Sanders and his team spent four weeks in Riverside, California, some 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles, creating the realistic replica of a desert commune in a remote province of Pakistan where some of the opening sequences for the film take place.

One of the more unusual locations was a scrap yard located on Terminal Island at Los Angeles Harbor. There, the company shot a scene in which Jerry and Rachel weave around 20-foot-high piles of crushed cars and heavy twisted metal as their pursuers crash or get plucked up like insects by giant cranes.

Originally the company was scheduled to shoot at the location for a couple of days. But that changed when Caruso and his team scouted the scrap yard. Caruso saw this location and created the sequence. As location manager Craig Van Gundy explains, “D. J. liked the location so much, he created an entire sequence around it with cinematographer Dariusz Wolski and the stunt and special effects teams.” By the time they were finished, between first and second units, the company shot at the site for 14 nights.

The water truck the company brought to Terminal Island to wet the area down before shooting turned out to be completely unnecessary as the area was hit with a heavy downpour that lasted through the night’s shoot. The storm actually required the company to stop for a short time after a tornado warning was issued for the area just south of the location (the tornado, a highly unusual event for Southern California, touched down a few hours later several miles north of Los Angeles).

Home base for the production was the old Hughes Aircraft plant, in Playa Vista not far from Los Angeles International airport. Two hangars housed an ongoing rotation of over 50 sets including the floor of the House of Representatives and all the interior Pentagon sets. Secretary of Defense Geoffrey Callister’s office and the Pentagon hallways, as well as several other key Pentagon sets, were designed and constructed in the hangars where Hughes built his Spruce Goose, a fact that was remarkable for actor Billy Bob Thornton. “It’s nice when you come to work every day and you think ‘Wow, look at the history in this place.’”

Keeping It Real

In order to keep audiences along for the ride with Jerry and Rachel in a world where an unknown entity seems to be able to control everything in their lives, the filmmakers stuck to a single mantra: keep it real. “There is a little bit of science fiction at the center of this movie,” explains co-producer Chiarelli, “and the way to sell that idea is to have everything around it be as real as possible. Whether it’s the Pentagon hallway or Capitol Building, we worked really hard to re-create everything as accurately as possible.”

“We were very careful while developing the script to make sure that every event they experienced was somehow possible,” says Kurtzman. “If even one of them felt fake, the whole thing would fall apart.”

With audiences overly familiar with military and criminal investigation through news and procedural television shows, it was paramount to make those aspects as authentic as possible. To assure that the military met audience expectations, the filmmakers enlisted the help of the Pentagon. “It’s very difficult to get the Department of Defense in cooperation,” says producer Ed McDonnell. “But they worked closely with us on the script. They were fully onboard with us on this movie, in order to give it a sense of genuineness and realness that you couldn’t get without their help.” Everything from the semantics of speech, body posture and attitude were kept in check. “D.J. and Shia both relished having the advisers on set on a daily basis.”

Adds LaBeouf, “There was a guy there for everything – monitoring the mannerisms, the way you hold your gun, the way you speak to a certain officer.”

Rosario Dawson actually traveled to the Air Force’s OSI headquarters in Washington, D.C. to learn what her real-life counterparts’ lives were like. “We arranged for her to meet with them to learn about what they do,” explains Air Force technical advisor Vince Aragona. Dawson also spoke with a female agent similar to her own character at L.A. Air Force Base. “That person actually ended up as an extra in the movie,” appearing as Dawson’s sidekick in some scenes.

Other active duty military also appear in the film as extras. “When you get active duty people in here wearing uniform,” Aragona says, “they already know how to walk, how to carry themselves, how to wear the uniforms properly. They’re active duty, they know what they’re doing. Plus, they love doing it.”

Technical assistance for the criminal investigation side came in the form of adviser Tom Knowles, a recently retired 22-year veteran of the FBI. Among other tasks, Knowles worked with Thornton and Ethan Embry, and reviewed the script for authenticity. “They asked me to help, for example, on a ‘crime scene,’ to help the actors with the kinds of things they should be focusing on, what evidence is critical and what is not – things of that sort,” he explains.

In one crime scene, a body wearing a small earpiece is found, surrounded by footprints. “They were initially focusing on the footprints,” Knowles says. “Footprints are good as evidence. But microphones or anything that’s man-made has a manufacturing code, information that can be traced back to the manufacturer or who it was sold to. That can lead you to a potential suspect.”

One of Knowles’ own commendation plaques even ended up as set decoration on the walls of Agent Thomas Morgan’s office. “He had the same first name as Morgan,” says Carr. “So if you’re looking at it real quickly, it could have been Thomas Morgan’s stuff.”

Knowles himself appears in one scene, doing one of the things he does best – driving like a cop. “You know, one of those high-paced stops that anyone in law enforcement’s done a thousand times. I was just trying not to wreck their cars,” he says, adding, “I have had a reputation for wrecking a few government vehicles here and there in my career.”

The task of creating a credible world for the story fell to production designer Tom Sanders and his team. “We wanted everything to be as realistic as possible,” says Sanders. Even with over 90 different sets and an expedited production schedule, Sanders, who has received numerous awards for his work on films like “Saving Private Ryan,” “Braveheart” and “Dracula,” was excited to meet the particular challenges of “Eagle Eye.” It was a nice change of pace: “I’ve done a lot of period pieces, so it was fun too, to jump into the present day.”

To reproduce environments such as the Floor of the House of Representatives in the U.S. Capitol for a scene in which the President is to deliver the State of the Union address – an event familiar to American audiences – the filmmakers took several trips to Washington for research. Built nearly to scale on a soundstage by Sanders and his team, the set was furnished with enough details to impress even the most seasoned critics. “Frankly, the research that’s been done prior to my even getting here has been outstanding and phenomenal,” says Congressional technical consultant Bryn Forhan. “I think they’ve done 110%.”

Not only did set decorator Carr reproduce the silver “mace” – a rarely-seen silver staff carried by the House Sergeant-at-Arms when introducing the President – but also a famous portrait of French General Lafayette, the first foreign statesperson to speak in the House, which hangs in the chamber. “I found a wonderful portrait artist named Marian Westall, who did quite a bit of research about Lafayette and found portraits of him,” Carr explains.

Some government facilities were off-limits for research visits. The National Military Command Center had to be designed and created purely from imagination. “We really don’t know exactly what it looks like.” says Carr. “We had no visual reference for that. You can imagine that it’s a space with people working, with a lot of monitors and desks. But no one was allowed to visit there, so that’s a set we had to take some artistic license with – it was an educated guess.”

With the Department of Defense’s cooperation, the production had the rare opportunity to actually film at the Pentagon, landing a Blackhawk helicopter on the lawn outside the building. The shoot required the cooperation of several departments, says Vince Ogilvie, Deputy Special Assistant for Entertainment Media at the D.O.D. “We’ve filmed several aerial scenes at the Pentagon, and that of course entails bringing together the Department of Transportation, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, in order to make those aerial scenes take place in a very restrictive and specialized air corridor in our nation’s capital.”

The impact of the experience was not lost on actor Michael Chiklis. “Being able to actually fly into the Pentagon on a Blackhawk helicopter and land on the front lawn really fascinated me,” he says. “There’s nothing else like being able see that space and go into some of the places where civilians don’t get to go and feel some of that weight officials like the Secretary of Defense feel. It’s a terrific thing for an actor to be able to do.”

In addition to overseeing the relationship between the production and the D.O.D, Ogilvie made use of his 28 years of military service to help Chiklis shape a credible character. “He has combined characteristics of all four Secretaries of Defense I have personally worked for into his portrayal of Secretary of Defense Geoff Callister,” says Ogilvie.

Big Brother Is Watching

It’s the end of your workday. You log off your computer and the network lets your boss know exactly how much progress you’ve made on that report that’s due on Friday. Driving home, you receive a message on your PDA from your “smart” house: you need milk. The GPS system in your car tells you the best place to get it. Your son calls and says he’s having dinner at his friend’s house and you know where he is because the GPS device on the family car tells you. You remind him to take his asthma medication thanks to a message from your family’s computerized personal health record, which also tells you it’s time to schedule your next check-up. It’s not the future any more.

Our days are filled with a vast array of technological conveniences from cell phones to global positioning systems, ATMs, computers, home security units, CCTV, traffic cams, magnetic strips on credit cards, buyers’ clubs, IDs and licenses, created to make our lives easier and safer. Computers have simplified the organization and control of information, communication, transportation, military hardware, financial systems and power grids – the things that form the backbone of our daily existence. “These are all things we have a lot invested in,” says Shia LaBeouf, “they were built to make our lives easier.”

“However,” as LaBeouf points out, “not many people stop to think about how it all works.” Everyday, virtually unnoticed, our world is digitally recorded and stored: our image, name, social security number, shopping preferences, where we go in this world and the virtual world. Who we are, our likes, our dislikes, our secrets, what we do and what we don’t do, is all part of a new digital landscape. Our faces, our eyes, our voices, our gaits are all capable of being measured, digitized, recorded and stored for tracking. And as computer power and storage capacity increases, so does the possibility to control it all. “Everything that we’re doing in this movie,” says Kurtzman, “in one way or another reflects the world we live in.”

The question the film asks is: What if…? What if someone discovered the means to access and utilize all that information, all that technology?

What if it was used against you?

The premise at the center of this nightmare scenario of innocent people framed and hunted is certainly closer than it was when the idea first came to Spielberg. In the years since he conceived the idea for the film, technology has grown exponentially. A world where you are watched, your movements tracked, recorded and filed, has moved from science fiction to reality. “What’s incredible about this,” explains LaBeouf, “is the fact that Steven Spielberg had the foresight to see this happening almost ten years ago.”

As Kurtzman points out, innovation is accelerating so quickly that in the time he and producer Roberto Orci have been working on the screenplay the premise has moved much closer to reality. “What Steven told us was that at the time he conceived of the idea it would have been science fiction,” says Kurtzman, “it would’ve stretched beyond plausibility. And what’s really exciting about doing it now is that it isn’t sci-fi anymore. Technology is changing so rapidly, it’s actually changed in our favor over the course of the last two years. Because every morning we wake up, everything becomes more and more possible.”

What is most terrifying about whoever is controlling Jerry and Rachel is their ability to orchestrate the manipulation of a sea of seemingly benign technologies. Monaghan’s interest in the project was piqued by this frightening prospect of everyday technology used as a weapon. “It takes care of us and we depend on it so much,” she says. “The idea of it actually turning on us, having it used against us, I found that really terrifying – and that’s one of the things that really intrigued me when I read the script.”

During his interrogation, Jerry is sprung from an FBI office by a giant crane arm that comes crashing through a window. Rachel watches as the video monitors at McDonalds turn into a live-feed from a moving train of her son. A voice on the phone tells them exactly what to do next or they will suffer dire consequences. Jerry and Rachel are pawns in this new digital landscape.

“All we know is there’s a very powerful voice,” says LaBeouf, “it’s in every car, airport screen, anything you could possibly imagine that’s plugged in. We really have no idea why we’re being told to do these things. We only know that the voice has a significant amount of power and that we, and the people we love, are in danger if we don’t adhere to its demands. We have no idea where it’s coming from, all we know is that it’s got tabs on us from every direction and there’s no way of escaping it.”

ABOUT THE CAST

SHIA LaBEOUF (Jerry) most recently starred in the blockbuster hit “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” opposite Harrison Ford, Karen Allen and Cate Blanchett and directed by Steven Spielberg.

Last year, LaBeouf took international audiences by storm when he starred in D.J. Caruso’s popular thriller “Disturbia” and again as Sam Witwicky in Michael Bay’s blockbuster “TRANSFORMERS” executive-produced by Spielberg. He also lent his voice to the character of a young penguin, Cody Maverick, in the Oscar®-nominated animated film “Surf’s Up” alongside Jeff Bridges, James Woods and Zooey Deschanel.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, LaBeouf began acting as a way to entertain his mother and father at the tender age of three. He later attended the Magnet School of Performing Arts at USC before beginning his career as an actor by hiring an agent at the age of 11.

LaBeouf made his debut in the TV film “Breakfast with Einstein” (1998) before being cast in the award-winning Disney series “Even Stevens.” Over the next four years, LaBeouf’s performance in the popular series earned him a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Performer in a Daytime TV Series (2003) and a nomination for the Young Artist Award as Leading as Young Actor in a TV Comedy Series three years running (2000-2002).

In 2003, LaBeouf made his feature film debut opposite Sigourney Weaver and Jon Voight in the comedy “Holes,” based on the best-selling book by Louis Sachar. For this performance, LaBeouf was nominated for the Young Artist Award in 2004 for Leading Young Actor in a Feature Film and the Breakthrough Male Performance at the MTV Movie Awards. That same year, he was cast as Bosley’s protégé in “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” and starred in HBO’s “Project Greenlight” feature “The Battle of Shaker Heights” produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

Since his early work as a young actor, he has begun to take on more challenging roles, like that of the young Robert Downey Jr. in “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints” (2006), which won Best Ensemble Cast at the Sundance Film Festival, and as part of the ensemble in Emilio Estevez’s acclaimed drama “Bobby” (2006).

In 2005, LaBeouf played amateur golfer Francis Ouimet in “The Greatest Game Ever Played” (2005) directed by Bill Paxton and based on Mark Frost’s best-selling book. He starred alongside Will Smith in “I, Robot” in 2004, followed by a supporting role the same year in “Constantine,” the sci-fi thriller based on the comic book Hellblazer, opposite Keanu Reeves.

On the heels of his performances in “Disturbia” and “TRANSFORMERS,” LaBeouf was given the 2007 ShoWest Award for Male Star of Tomorrow and was nominated for four Teen Choice Awards for “TRANSFORMERS,” winning the Breakout Male Award. He also won the Teen Choice Award for Movie Actor in a Horror/Thriller for his performance in “Disturbia,” and also won a Scream Award.

He recently finished shooting the anthology film “New York, I Love You.”

MICHELLE MONAGHAN (Rachel) continues to be one of the most sought-after young actresses in Hollywood.

  Monaghan most recently starred in the romantic comedy hit “Made of Honor” with Patrick Dempsey, “Gone Baby Gone” with Casey Affleck and Morgan Freeman, “The Heartbreak Kid” opposite Ben Stiller and “Mission: Impossible III” opposite Tom Cruise and Philip Seymour Hoffman for director J.J. Abrams.

Prior to that, she received rave reviews for her performance in “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,” in which she starred opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer for writer-director Shane Black. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. She then joined Charlize Theron, Frances McDormand and Sissy Spacek in “North Country” for director Niki Caro.

Other films include “Perfume,” “It Runs in the Family,” “Winter Solstice,” “The Bourne Supremacy” and “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.”

Monaghan will next star in and serve as executive producer on the film “Trucker,” which premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.  

ROSARIO DAWSON (Zoe) Rosario Dawson has garnered praise for her numerous leading roles with today’s hottest film actors and directors, making her one of Hollywood’s most sought after leading ladies.

Dawson recently wrapped filming the Sony Pictures drama “Seven Pounds” starring opposite Will Smith. Gabriele Muccino of “The Pursuit of Happyness” directed the film, which follows a guilt-ridden man who falls in love while attempting to end his life. Dawson also stars in the Weinstein Company’s, John Madden-directed “Killshot” alongside Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane and Johnny Knoxville, which is based on the best-selling crime novel about a couple who enters a witness protection program, but still find themselves targets of two hit men.

In 2008, Dawson also starred in the political drama “Explicit Ills,” which premiered at SXSW Film Festival. The film received praise from critics, as well as three awards including the “Audience Award” at the festival.

Prior to that, she appeared in “Deathproof,” Quentin Tarantino’s half of the horror project “Grindhouse,” a joint venture consisting of two feature films, one directed by Tarantino and the other by Robert Rodriguez. “Deathproof” was chosen as an in-competition film for the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and has continued its success overseas.

Dawson starred in and produced the film “Descent” for director Talia Lugacy. Premiering in 2007 at the Tribeca Film Festival to rave reviews, it was Dawson’s first self-produced feature film under her production banner, Trybe Films. Dawson also produced a 15-minute short film entitled “Bliss Virus” written and directed by Talia Lugacy. Additionally, Dawson hopes to produce Lugacy’s first feature sometime in the near future.

Dawson won critical acclaim for her portrayal of Becky in Kevin Smith’s “Clerks 2” for the Weinstein Company in 2006. She was also seen in “A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints” opposite Robert Downey Jr., Shia LaBeouf, Dianne Wiest, Chazz Palminteri and Channing Tatum. The film was honored at the Sundance Film Festival and received the award for Special Jury Prize for a Dramatic Film.

In 2004 and 2005, Dawson carved out memorable performances in three films featuring fabulous ensemble casts. Dawson played Roxanne, wife of Alexander the Great in the Oliver Stone epic “Alexander,” rounding out an all-star cast including Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins and Jared Leto; she made a huge impact starring in the Robert Rodriguez/Frank Miller film noir drama “Sin City” starring Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Clive Owen and Brittany Murphy (and will reprise her role in the highly anticipated “Sin City 2”); and she starred as Mimi Valdez in the Chris Columbus-directed film adaptation of the famed Pulitzer Prize-winning Jonathan Larson Broadway musical “Rent,” joining many of the original Broadway cast members including Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Jesse Martin and Taye Diggs.

In 2003, Dawson co-starred with Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott and Christopher Walken in Universal’s action/comedy “The Rundown,” in which she played a Brazilian rebel leader, leading the fight for her enslaved people in order to get the money and the basic living essentials that they deserve. She also appeared in “Shattered Glass” with Hayden Christensen, Chloe Sevigny and Steve Zahn; and in the indie film “This Girl’s Life” starring James Woods and Juliette Marquis.

Dawson shone on screen when she starred in the acclaimed Spike Lee film “The 25th Hour” opposite Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper. She starred opposite Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in Columbia Pictures’ “Men in Black II,” in “The Adventures of Pluto Nash” opposite Eddie Murphy and in “Chelsea Walls” for director Ethan Hawke, based on the play of the same name.

Dawson appeared in “The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest,” written by Jon Favreau and directed by Mick Jackson. Other credits include Paramount Classics’ “Sidewalks of New York,” a romantic comedy written and directed by the film’s star Ed Burns, in which she also co-starred with Heather Graham, Stanley Tucci and Brittany Murphy. She subsequently appeared in Burns’ follow-up, “Ash Wednesday” along with Burns and Elijah Wood.

She can also be seen in the independent film “Love in the Time of Money” written and directed by theater director Peter Mattei, which premiered to acclaim at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. The film also stars Steve Buscemi, Carol Kane, Michael Imperioli and Adrian Grenier.

Dawson made her film debut in the highly acclaimed and controversial hit “Kids.” Directed by photographer Larry Clark with a script by Harmony Korine, “Kids” depicts a chaotic 24-hour period in the lives of several New York skaters. The film features a group of kids pulled from the streets of New York, as opposed to professional actors. When the film was given a surprise midnight screening at Sundance and a spot in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival, Dawson’s film career was well underway.

Dawson’s other film credits include Spike Lee’s “He Got Game” opposite Denzel Washington; “Light It Up” opposite Forest Whitaker and Vanessa Williams; “Down to You” with Freddie Prinze Jr.; and “Josie and the Pussycats” with Rachel Leigh Cook and Tara Reid.

Dawson currently resides in Los Angeles.

MICHAEL CHIKLIS (Callister) can be seen in FX’s groundbreaking drama “The Shield” starring as Detective Vic Mackey, who leads the elite Strike Team unit with his own set of rules. The critically acclaimed series is currently in production on its seventh season. Chiklis has taken on the role of producer and director for several of the series’ episodes. His first foray behind the camera began in the third season as he helmed the episode titled “Slipknot.”

Chiklis has earned numerous awards for his groundbreaking performance on “The Shield,” beginning with the Television Critics Association Award for Individual Achievement in Drama in 2002. Time declared that Chiklis “gave TV’s performance of the year.” He went on to win both the Emmy and Golden Globe in 2003. Since then, he has earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Drama Series in both 2004 and 2005.

Chiklis starred in 20th Century Fox’s blockbuster live-action film “Fantastic Four,” as well as its sequel “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.” He portrayed Ben Grimm, aka The Thing, one of Marvel Comics’ most popular and beloved characters.

A natural performer, Chiklis began entertaining his family with celebrity imitations when he was just five years old. As a child, Chiklis appeared in regional theater productions and earned his Equity card at age 13. He later attended Boston University’s School of Performing Arts where he received his B.F.A.

Days after graduation, Chiklis auditioned for the role of John Belushi in the controversial film “Wired,” a role that he would eventually earn three years later. He also guest starred in several popular series such as “Miami Vice,” “L.A. Law,” “Murphy Brown” and “Seinfeld.”

In 1991 Chiklis captured the title role on “The Commish,” which aired on ABC from 1991-1996. Chiklis portrayed Tony Scali, the tough but fair-minded police commissioner who was beloved by his fellow officers. The role was based on an actual New York state police commissioner and originally called for an older man, but Chiklis won the producers over and made the role his own.

After “The Commish” wrapped, Chiklis went to Broadway and starred in the one-man show “Defending the Caveman.” His film credits include the horror thriller “Rise” opposite Lucy Liu, “The Tax Man” with Joe Pantoliano, “Do Not Disturb” opposite William Hurt and Jennifer Tilly, “Last Request” and “Body and Soul.” His additional television credits include a role as Chris Woods, the stay-at-home father on the NBC comedy “Daddio,” as well as a starring role as Curly in the ABC movie “The Three Stooges,” which was executive produced by Mel Gibson.

ANTHONY MACKIE (Scott), who was classically trained at the Julliard School of Drama, is a talented young actor who is able to capture a plethora of characters.

Mackie was discovered after receiving rave reviews while playing Tupac Shakur in the off Broadway “Up Against the Wind.” Immediately following, Mackie made an auspicious film debut as Eminem’s nemesis, Papa Doc, in Curtis Hanson’s “8 Mile.”  His performance caught the attention of Spike Lee, who subsequently cast Mackie in the 2004 Toronto Film Festival Masters Program selection “Sucker Free City” and “She Hate Me.”  He also appeared in Clint Eastwood’s Academy Award®-winning “Million Dollar Baby” opposite Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman and Eastwood; Jonathan Demme’s “The Manchurian Candidate” alongside Denzel Washington and Liev Schreiber; and the comedy “The Man” starring Samuel L. Jackson. 

            Mackie earned IFP Spirit and Gotham Award nominations for his performance in Rodney Evans’ “Brother to Brother,” which won the 2004 Special Dramatic Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and Best First Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards.  In 2005, he appeared opposite David Strathairn, Timothy Hutton and Leelee Sobieski in “Heavens Fall,” an independent feature that premiered at the 2006 SXSW Film Festival in Austin and is based on the historic Scottsboro Boys’ trials.   

Mackie also had five features on movie screens in 2006.  In addition to “We Are Marshall,” he starred in “Half Nelson” with Ryan Gosling, adapted from director Ryan Fleck’s Sundance-winning short “Gowanus Brooklyn”; Preston Whitmore’s “Crossover”; Frank E. Flowers’ ensemble crime drama “Haven” opposite Orlando Bloom and Bill Paxton; and the film adaptation of Richard Price’s “Freedomland” starring Samuel L. Jackson.  

Before his film career, Mackie was seen in several theatrical performances both on and off Broadway. He made his Broadway debut as the stuttering nephew, Sylvester, alongside Whoopi Goldberg in August Wilson’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Next he was seen as the lead in Regina King’s modern retelling of Chekov’s “The Seagull,” as well as starring in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Soldier’s Play” as a character made famous by Denzel Washington 20 years earlier. Most recently, Mackie was part of the production of “August Wilson’s 20th Century” at the Kennedy Center where staged readings of all 10 plays in August Wilson’s cycle were performed. Mackie hopes to return to the stage soon.

In addition, Mackie will play Buddy Bolden in “Bolden!,” an account of the great New Orleans cornet player. He will also be seen as Sanborn in “The Hurt Locker,” a war drama set in Iraq. Mackie has begun filming his role as Tupac Shakur in “Notorious,” a biopic of slain rapper Notorious B.I.G directed by George Tillman Jr. and starring Jamal Woolard in the title role.

BILLY BOB THORNTON (Morgan) is an Academy Award®-winning writer, actor, director and musician who has enjoyed an extensive and impressive career in motion pictures, television and theater. Charismatic and uniquely talented, Thornton has established himself as one of the most sought- after filmmakers of his generation.

Thornton is currently celebrating a high water mark in his career. Most recently, he starred in the New Line Cinema comedy “Mr. Woodcock,” Warner Bros. Pictures’ “The Astronaut Farmer” directed by the Polish Brothers, “School for Scoundrels,” the remake of the “The Bad News Bears” for Paramount Pictures and “Friday Night Lights” for Universal Pictures. He garnered a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for his role in the critically acclaimed hit “Bad Santa” and received rave reviews for his portrayal of legendary frontiersman Davy Crockett in Touchstone Pictures’ “The Alamo.”

He will next be seen in “The Informers,” a film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ best-selling novel, and recently completed production on the independent feature “Manure,” which re-teamed him with his “Astronaut Farmer” directors the Polish brothers. 

Showing the versatility of his acting abilities, in 2001 Thornton starred in the caper comedy “Bandits” for director Barry Levinson and co-starring Bruce Willis and Cate Blanchett; the noir “The Man Who Wasn’t There” for the Coen brothers; and the heart-wrenching drama “Monster’s Ball” in which he co-starred with Halle Berry, Peter Boyle and Heath Ledger.

Each of the three performances garnered Thornton unprecedented critical acclaim and resulted in his being named Best Actor of 2001 by the National Board of Review, Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor in a Drama for “The Man Who Wasn’t There” and Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for “Bandits” and an American Film Institute Award nomination for Best Actor for “The Man Who Wasn’t There.”

Thornton’s 1996 release of the critically acclaimed and phenomenally popular feature film “Sling Blade,” which he starred in, directed and adapted the screenplay from his own stage play, firmly secured his status as a preeminent filmmaker. For his efforts, he was honored with both an Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay and an Academy Award® nomination for Best Actor. The film, produced by The Shooting Gallery and released by Miramax, also starred Robert Duvall, J.T. Walsh, Dwight Yoakum and John Ritter.

Prior to “Sling Blade,” Thornton already had an extensive motion picture credit list. He wrote and starred in the thrilling character drama “One False Move,” which brought him immediate critical praise. Thornton’s powerful script (co-written with Tom Epperson) was enhanced by his intense performance as a hunted criminal. The film, directed by Carl Franklin, was an unheralded sleeper success.

In addition, Thornton has been featured in such films as “The Winner” for director Alex Cox, Paramount Pictures’ “Indecent Proposal” directed by Adrian Lyne, “Deadman” for director Jim Jarmusch and Miramax and in “Tombstone” directed by George Cosmatos for Buena Vista Pictures.

Thornton has also appeared in the films “On Deadly Ground,” “Bound by Honor,” “For the Boys” and “The Stars Fell on Henrietta.”

As a writer, Thornton has worked on numerous projects for United Artists, Miramax, Universal Studios, Warner Bros., Touchstone Pictures, Island Pictures, David Geffen Productions and HBO. He also scripted “A Family Thing,” a highly regarded feature film that starred Robert Duvall and James Earl Jones for United Artists.

Thornton co-starred in the blockbuster action/adventure “Armageddon” with Bruce Willis for producer Jerry Bruckheimer and has also co-starred opposite Sean Penn and Nick Nolte in “U-Turn” directed by Oliver Stone, “Primary Colors” opposite John Travolta and Emma Thompson for director Mike Nichols, and the dark comedy “Pushing Tin” opposite John Cusack.

Thornton received an Academy Award® nomination and Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his celebrated work in the tightly woven drama “A Simple Plan” for director Sam Raimi, as well as a Best Supporting Actor Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and a Best Supporting Actor nomination from the Screen Actors Guild.

For his second and third directorial outings, Thornton chose the comedy “Daddy and Them,” which he again wrote and starred in, and the epic adaptation of the best-selling Cormac McCarthy novel “All The Pretty Horses” starring Matt Damon, Penelope Cruz and Henry Thomas.

Thornton also co-wrote “The Gift” starring Cate Blanchett, Giovanni Ribisi and Hilary Swank. His other film credits include the comedy “Waking Up In Reno” co-starring Charlize Theron, Patrick Swayze and Natasha Richardson for Miramax Films; the drama “Levity,” in which he co-starred with Morgan Freeman, Holly Hunter and Kirsten Dunst; “Intolerable Cruelty” co-starring George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones; and “Love Actually” with Hugh Grant, Laura Linney and Liam Neeson.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

D.J. CARUSO (Directed by) most recently helmed the hit suspense thriller “Disturbia” starring Shia LaBeouf. Prior to that he directed “Two for the Money,” teaming Oscar®-winner Al Pacino and Matthew McConaughey in a fast-paced story set in the world of high-stakes gambling. The film followed his 2004 hit “Taking Lives,” which starred Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke in a haunting thriller about an FBI agent on the trail of an elusive serial killer.

Although Caruso came up through the ranks of television as a director, it was the directorial debut of his critically acclaimed feature film “The Salton Sea” that put him on a short list of directors to tap. The 2002 neo-noir thriller, starring Val Kilmer, was praised for its strong performances and visual technique.

In 2002, he also directed episodes of the hit series “The Shield” and Michael Mann’s “Robbery Homicide Division.” Additionally, he directed multiple episodes of Steven Spielberg’s series “High Incident” for ABC and James Cameron’s “Dark Angel.”

In 1998, he teamed with Hollywood veteran screenwriter Frank Darabont on “Black Cat Run,” which proved to be HBO’s highest-rated world premiere movie that year. In one of his first directorial forays, Caruso collaborated with writer Scott Rosenberg on the 1996 award-winning short film “Cyclops, Baby.”

Caruso is also a producer and executive producer of numerous feature film and television productions. In 1995, he executive-produced “Nick of Time,” starring Johnny Depp. A year earlier, he was the aerial director on “Drop Zone,” starring Wesley Snipes. The film garnered rave reviews for the ingenuity and beauty of Caruso’s aerial work.

His television producer credits include the 1996 HBO telefilm “Rebound: The Legend of Earl ‘The Goat’ Manigault” starring Don Cheadle, which garnered an Image Award nomination.

Caruso is a graduate of Pepperdine University and began his career in the film industry as a production assistant.

DAN MCDERMOTT (Screenplay/Story) began his career in Hollywood as a television executive. He first worked at the Fox Network, where he rose to the position of executive vice president, prime time entertainment and then was president of DreamWorks Television.

A few years ago he sold his first screenplay, “Selling Time,” to Fox 2000. To the sheer panic of friends, family and self, he promptly burned his executive suits, quit his job and launched a career as a screenwriter.

This is his first major motion picture credit.

In the past few years he has written “The Adventurers Club” as a starring vehicle for Tom Cruise; and created and executive produced the television series “Angela’s Eyes” for the Lifetime Network.

He wrote a contemporary version of “Soylent Green” for Warner Bros., and a re-imagined “Charlie Chan” franchise to feature Lucy Liu as the great sleuth for 20th Century Fox.

Currently McDermott is writing “Sinners and Saints,” a one-hour drama for the Fox Network; “Wasteland,” a feature film based on the graphic novel -published by Oni Press; and a four-hour miniseries for AMC about the colonization of America from the point of view of those who were here first – the Pequot Indians of the Connecticut River Valley, who occupied those woodlands long before the arrival of the British and Dutch.

McDermott is a graduate of the UCLA School of Film and Television and the American Film Institute’s Screenwriting program.

JOHN GLENN (Screenplay) is a native of Tuscaloosa, Alabama who moved to Los Angeles to study writing and directing at the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Glenn also studied acting and was heavily involved in the local Los Angeles music scene as a member of his own band and as the financer and producer of a country record.

Glenn has written screenplays and created television shows for Sony, Warner Bros., NBC, 20th Century Fox/FBC, Disney, Fox 2000, Paramount, Touchstone/ABC, Revolution and DreamWorks.

He has worked with such producers as Andrew Lazar, Jerry Bruckheimer, Dick Zanuck, David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman, Bud Yorkin, Adam Schroeder, Kevin Falls and Brancato-Salke, amongst others.

Glenn most recently completed his directorial debut, “The Heaven Project” starring Paul Walker, Piper Perabo and Bob Gunton.

Additionally, he sold his original spec script, “Lailoken,” to Warner Bros. Pictures and is close to securing a deal to direct his second film.

Glenn is currently writing “Junkers” for director Gil Kenan and producer Mark Gordon. In addition, he is also writing and executive-producing “Fix It Men” for Gordon and Touchstone television.

He is represented by Nicole Clemens, Dan Rabinow, Kevin Crotty and Pete Stone at ICM, Brian Lutz of Brian Lutz Management and Warren Dern of Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern.

Glenn lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three children.

TRAVIS ADAM WRIGHT (Screenplay) is the proud son of an Air Force fighter pilot who received the Silver Star in Vietnam for his role in the failed Son Tai Raid to rescue American POWs held captive in Hanoi in November 1970; and the even prouder son of a single mother who raised him and his brother working as a paralegal specializing in indigent emergency health care claims in Phoenix.

In 1993, Wright received a BA in political studies & writing from Pitzer College in Claremont, CA, where he promoted two dozen concerts before the age of 20, including such then-unknown artists as Horace Pinker, No Doubt and Ben Harper.

In the mid-‘90s, he paid his industry dues in publicity at Buena Vista Pictures Marketing, working on everything from “Pocahontas” to “Nixon.” Wright then spent two years on the desk of production executive Allison Shearmur during her tenures at Walt Disney Pictures and Universal.

In 2000, Wright graduated from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television with an MFA in screenwriting.  At UCLA, he won the “Jack Nicholson Prize in Screenwriting” and studied under visiting screenwriters Michael Colleary (“Face Off”), Dan Pyne (“Fracture”) and David Koepp (“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”). 

Wright teamed up with his boyhood friend John Glenn to write “Red World” for his first spec sale to Touchstone Pictures/Jerry Bruckheimer Films in 2000.  Wright and Glenn subsequently wrote a remake of Jules Verne’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth” for Fox 2000 and legendary producers Richard Zanuck and the late Bernie Schwartz, followed by planned remakes of “The Warriors” for Paramount and producer David Gale and “Clash of the Titans” for Warner Bros. and producer Adam Schroeder.

In television, Wright and Glenn wrote the drama pilots “Deegan’s Law” for producers Bert Salke and Chris Brancato, “Payback” for producer Kevin Falls and “Silverlake” for Fox/FBC as well as “Black Star” for UPN and producer Mark Stern.

The duo was brought onto “Eagle Eye” in 2005, marking a milestone for Wright who had grown up in Arizona with dreams of working with his boyhood idol, executive producer Steven Spielberg.

Wright recently served as a producer on Glenn’s directorial debut, “The Heaven Project” starring Paul Walker and Piper Perabo. Now writing separately, Wright and Glenn are re-teaming to re-spec “Red World,” which they recently acquired in turn-around from Disney.

Currently Wright is packaging “Hunting the Wolf” (for which he adapted The Berkut by Joseph Heywood), a “what-if” World War II thriller about Hitler faking his death and trying to flee Europe; as well as “Harlem Hellfighters” (screenplay by Wright and fellow UCLA alumnus Robert Davenport), a harrowing drama about a real-life African-American unit in World War I who introduced jazz to France.  With Davenport, Travis also co-wrote “Santa vs. Scrooge,” a re-imagining of the Santa myth set in 19th century New York involving Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle and an orphan named Nick.

During the 2007 WGA strike Travis founded Beyond Comics, a writer-driven company dedicated to linking screenwriters with artists to self-publish top-quality graphic novels.  The first title, The End of Chivalry (art by Sergio Vasquez; story by Travis Wright) premiered at this year’s Comic-Con.  The End of Chivalry centers on a Shakespearean love story set against the last great battle between medieval knights, where all the old ethical codes were violated and modern warfare as we know it was born.

In 2008, Wright became a founding member of the WGA’s American Indian Writers Committee, which is dedicated to finding the next generation of Native American writers.  As chair of the Subcommittee on Outreach, he helped establish the WGA’s California Outreach Program where top screenwriters teach weekend workshops at reservations throughout the state.

Wright lives in Westwood in Los Angeles, with his wife Sabrina, newborn daughter Evelyn and their rambunctious Boston terrier.

HILLARY SEITZ (Screenplay) is a graduate of Yale University and has been a working screenwriter for the last decade. Her first studio project was the Warner Bros. thriller “Insomnia” directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Academy Award® winners Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank. Since then Seitz has worked steadily, writing and rewriting numerous movies as varied as “The Italian Job,” “I Robot” and “Enchanted.” “Eagle Eye” was her first assignment for DreamWorks Pictures, yet marked her second time working with director D.J. Caruso, with whom she collaborated on “Taking Lives.” She is currently adapting the action thriller “Button Man” based on the acclaimed graphic novel for DreamWorks and producer Mike DeLuca.

ALEX KURTZMAN and ROBERTO ORCI (Producers) are longtime collaborators and creative visionaries who began their work together as innovative storytellers in a Los Angeles-area high school. Separately, penning original adventure tales and making ambitious home movies, they soon joined forces and dreamed of one day bringing their movies to a mass audience. Last summer saw the realization of that dream with “TRANSFORMERS,” a live-action adaptation of the popular animated series that went on to gross over $700 million worldwide. The pair recently wrote the sequel along with scribe Ehren Kruger, which is currently in production.

Inspired by Spielbergian action-adventure films emphasizing story, Kurtzman and Orci reunited after college to write for the popular television series “Hercules” and “Xena: Warrior Princess,” where they quickly became head writers at the age of 23.

In 2003, Kurtzman and Orci were approached to write for J.J. Abrams’ wildly popular television spy thriller “Alias,” and eventually ascended to become executive producers of the show. In 2006, the duo re-teamed with Abrams to write the third installment of “Mission: Impossible” starring Tom Cruise as super-agent Ethan Hunt, which was embraced by critics for adding depth and humanity to the series and grossed over $397 million worldwide.

Prior to “Mission: Impossible III,” Kurtzman and Orci made a splash with the sci-fi thriller “The Island,” their feature film debut helmed by Michael Bay. Late 2005 saw the release of “The Legend of Zorro” starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Antonio Banderas.

Kurtzman and Orci are currently in post-production on “Star Trek,” slated for a May 2009 release with J.J. Abrams directing. The pair has written their own fresh take on the classic show, and are also executive-producing the film.

In addition to their writing projects, Kurtzman and Orci are producing a continually growing slate of movies through their K/O shingle at DreamWorks. “Eagle Eye” is their first release under this agreement. Additionally, they are producing “The Proposal” starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, “Cowboys and Aliens,” “Nightlife,” “Deep Sea Cowboys” and “Atlantis Rising.” They are also producing “28th Amendment” for Warner Bros.

Following the success of “TRANSFORMERS” and their other endeavors, Kurtzman and Orci are using their position in the entertainment industry to nurture other young writers and help them find their individual voices through a unique deal with DreamWorks and Paramount, in which the team is producing their own material, as well as developing the projects of other writers.

Kurtzman and Orci both live with their families in Los Angeles.

PATRICK CROWLEY (Producer) is a veteran motion picture producer with worldwide experience. He produced the highly successful “Bourne” series starring Matt Damon: “The Bourne Identity,” “The Bourne Supremacy” and “The Bourne Ultimatum.” He also produced “Eight Below” directed by Frank Marshall and starring Paul Walker.

Crowley began his career as an assistant director working with such directors as Karel Reisz and John Schlesinger. He served as executive producer on “Sleepless in Seattle,” “Legends of the Fall” and “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.”

From 1994 to 2000 he was executive vice president, production, for New Regency Productions. He supervised production on such films as “L.A. Confidential,” “Fight Club,” “Heat,” “A Time to Kill,” “The Devil’s Advocate,” “City of Angels,” “Entrapment,” “Tin Cup,” “The Negotiator” and many others.

Crowley is also a principal in E-studio Network, an Internet based document manager and database used by Walt Disney Studios, and a partner in GamePlan, a production consultant service for studios and independents.

STEVEN SPIELBERG (Executive Producer) is a three-time Academy Award® winner, having earned two Oscars® for Best Director and Best Picture for “Schindler’s List” and a third Oscar® for Best Director for “Saving Private Ryan.”  He has also received Best Director Oscar® nominations for “Munich,” “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

In 1994, Spielberg’s internationally lauded “Schindler’s List” emerged as the year’s most honored film, receiving a total of seven Oscars®, including the aforementioned nods for Best Picture and Best Director.  The film also collected Best Picture awards from many of the major critics’ organizations, in addition to seven BAFTA Awards, including two for Spielberg.  He also won the Golden Globe Award and received a Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award.

Spielberg’s critically acclaimed World War II drama “Saving Private Ryan” starring Tom Hanks, was the highest-grossing release (domestically) of 1998.  The film also won five Oscars®, including the one for Spielberg as Best Director, two Golden Globe Awards for Best Picture (Drama) and Best Director, and numerous critics’ groups awards for Best Picture and Best Director.  In addition, Spielberg won a DGA Award and a Producers Guild of America (PGA) Award.  That year, the PGA also presented Spielberg with the prestigious Milestone Award for his historic contribution to the motion picture industry.

Spielberg won his first DGA Award for “The Color Purple” and also earned DGA Award nominations for “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Empire of the Sun,” “Jaws,” “Amistad” and “Munich.”  With 10 in all, Spielberg has received more DGA Award nominations than any director in history and, in 2000, he received the DGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.  He is also the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the Kennedy Center Honor.

For television, on the heels of “Saving Private Ryan,” Spielberg and Tom Hanks executive-produced the miniseries “Band of Brothers” for HBO and DreamWorks Television.  Based on the book of the same name by the late Stephen Ambrose, the fact-based World War II project won both Emmy and Golden Globe Awards for Best Miniseries.  Spielberg and Hanks are currently in development on “The Pacific,” a World War II miniseries focusing on the battles in the Pacific theatre.

Spielberg won another Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries for “Steven Spielberg Presents Taken,” a SciFi Channel drama about alien abduction, which he executive produced.  He is currently developing another miniseries to air on the SciFi Channel called “Nine Lives.”  Also for television, Spielberg executive-produced “Into the West,” an original limited series Western which aired on the TNT cable network.  Amblin Entertainment produced, with Warner Bros. Television, the award-winning, groundbreaking series “E.R.,” which begins its 15th season on NBC this fall.

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Spielberg was raised in the suburbs of Haddonfield, New Jersey and Scottsdale, Arizona.  He started making amateur films while still in his teens, later studying film at California State University, Long Beach.  In 1969, his 22-minute short “Amblin’” was shown at the Atlanta Film Festival, which led to a deal with Universal, making him the youngest director ever to be signed to a long-term deal with a major Hollywood studio. 

Four years later, he directed the suspenseful telefilm “Duel,” which garnered both critical and audience attention.  He made his feature film directorial debut on “The Sugarland Express” from a screenplay he co-wrote.  In addition to the aforementioned films, his earlier film credits as a director include “Always” and “Hook.”

Most recently, Spielberg directed this year’s triumphant return of the Indiana Jones franchise, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” The film was a worldwide box office hit, grossing $300 million in its first week of release, and went on to surpass $750 million globally.

In 2006, Spielberg produced, with Clint Eastwood and Rob Lorenz, “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima,” the latter of which earned four Oscar® nominations, including Best Picture.  The dual films, directed by Eastwood, explored the battle of Iwo Jima from American and Japanese perspectives.

In 2005, Spielberg directed two films: “War of the Worlds” starring Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning, and “Munich” starring Eric Bana, Daniel Craig and Geoffrey Rush, which earned five Academy Award® nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director for Spielberg.  Spielberg’s other recent films include “Catch Me If You Can” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, the futuristic thriller “Minority Report” starring Cruise, and “The Terminal” starring Hanks.  He also wrote, directed and produced “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence,” which was realized from the vision of the late Stanley Kubrick.  In 2000, Spielberg won the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film, presented by BAFTA - Los Angeles.

In 1984, Spielberg formed his own production company, Amblin Entertainment.  Under the Amblin banner, he has served as a producer or executive producer on more than a dozen films, including such successes as “Gremlins,” “The Goonies,” “Back to the Future” and its two sequels, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “An American Tail,” “The Land Before Time,” “The Flintstones,” “Casper,” “Twister,” “The Mask of Zorro,” “Men in Black” and “Men in Black II.”   

In October 1994, Spielberg partnered with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen to form the new studio DreamWorks SKG, which was sold to Paramount Pictures in early 2006.  Under their leadership, the studio has enjoyed critical and commercial success, and has been responsible for some of the most honored films in recent years, including three consecutive Best Picture Academy Award® winners: “American Beauty,” “Gladiator” and “A Beautiful Mind” (the latter two co-productions with Universal), and the recent blockbuster “TRANSFORMERS.”           Spielberg has also devoted his time and resources to many philanthropic causes.  The impact of his experience making “Schindler’s List” led him to establish the Righteous Persons Foundation using all his profits from the film.  He also founded Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation (now the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education), which has recorded more than 50,000 Holocaust survivor testimonies.

 In addition, Spielberg executive produced “The Last Days,” the Shoah Foundation’s third documentary, which won the Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature.  He is also the Chairman Emeritus of the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation, which combines the efforts of pediatric health care, technology and entertainment to empower seriously ill children.

EDWARD L. MCDONNELL (Producer) began his career in the entertainment industry working at Paramount Pictures with Jeffrey Katzenberg. His first produced feature was the thriller “Kid” starring C. Thomas Howell.

Following his time at Paramount, McDonnell ran Henry Winkler’s company, Monument Pictures, where he worked on productions as varied as “The Sure Thing,” “Young Sherlock Holmes” and Winkler’s feature directorial debut, “Memories of Me.”

McDonnell then became head of Steven Seagal's company, Seagal-Nasso Productions, where he supervised the development and production for the films “Out for Justice,” “Under Siege,” “Under Siege 2: Dark Territory” and “On Deadly Ground,” giving him the opportunity to work all over the globe.

McDonnell next became president of Witt/Thomas Films, producing the action-drama “Three Kings,” one of 1999's most critically acclaimed films, starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube, and originated “Insomnia” starring Al Pacino and directed by Christopher Nolan.

He then moved on to Di Novi Pictures, where he produced “A Walk to Remember” starring Mandy Moore and “Original Sin” starring Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas. He also produced the hit “Shanghai Knights” with Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson, “Catwoman” starring Halle Berry and “Racing Stripes” starring the voices of Whoopi Goldberg, Dustin Hoffman, David Spade and Frankie Muniz.

Currently, McDonnell runs Maple Shade Productions under the Warner Bros. banner, where he has an exclusive first look deal.

DARIUSZ WOLSKI, ASC (Director of Photography) most recently provided the cinematography for Tim Burton’s “Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” starring Johnny Depp, and all three episodes of Gore Verbinski’s swashbuckling adventure films “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” all of which also starred Depp.

Other feature film credits include “The Mexican” starring Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, Alex Proyas’ “The Crow” and “Dark City,” Tony Scott’s “The Fan” and “Crimson Tide” (for which Wolski was nominated for an ASC Award), Andrew Davis’ “A Perfect Murder,” John Polson’s “Hide and Seek,” Joel Schumacher’s “Bad Company” and Peter Medak’s “Romeo Is Bleeding,” and for American Playhouse on PBS, Evelyn Purcell’s “Land of Little Rain.”

In addition to his film career, Wolski has worked with such artists as Neil Young, Keith Richards, Sting, Aerosmith, Traveling Wilburys, Eminem, Dido and Van Halen, shooting more than 100 music videos.

TOM SANDERS (Production Designer) received Academy Award® nominations in Art Direction for his work on “Saving Private Ryan” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” He recently recreated an ancient Mayan world for Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto” and a Vietnam battlefield for “We Were Soldiers” starring Gibson and directed by Randall Wallace. He has served as production designer on “Mission: Impossible II,” “Father’s Day,” “Assassins,” “Braveheart,” “Maverick” and “Days of Thunder.” Sanders also served as art director on “Hook,” “Naked Tango” and “Revenge,” and as visual consultant on “Timeline.”

In 1996, he directed an episode of HBO’s successful series “Tales from the Crypt” entitled “About Face.”

JIM PAGE (Film Editor) most recently collaborated with D.J. Caruso on “Disturbia.” Prior to that, he edited Richard Loncraine’s “Firewall” starring Harrison Ford and Virginia Madsen, and Shane Black’s action comedy thriller “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” starring Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer.

His other film credits as editor include “The Majestic” directed by Frank Darabont and starring Jim Carrey and “The Salton Sea” with Val Kilmer. Page was also an additional editor on “Taking Lives” starring Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke.

For the small screen, Page has edited numerous television series, including “CSI: Miami,” “The Shield,” “Boomtown,” “Once and Again,” “Cupid” and “High Incident.” He has also edited several television pilots, as well as the telefilms “Mind Prey” and “Black Cat Run” for HBO.

Upcoming for Page is “The Uninvited,” due in early 2009.

MARIE-SYLVIE DEVEAU (Costume Designer) created the costumes on three other films directed by D.J. Caruso: “Disturbia,” “Two for the Money” and “Taking Lives.” Her work can also be seen in Raja Gosnell’s comedy “Yours, Mine and Ours” with Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo, and in Simon West’s “When a Stranger Calls.”

Her additional film credits include the costumes created for “The Perfect Man,” co-starring Hilary Duff and Heather Locklear; Mike Figgis’ “Cold Creek Manor”; “Levity”; Phil Alden Robinson’s “The Sum of All Fears”; “Serendipity”; “Angel Eyes”; “Urban Legend: Final Cut”; Rob Cohen’s “The Skulls”; Mike Newell’s “Pushing Tin”; “The Mighty”; “Mimic”; “Fly Away Home”; and the Adam Sandler comedy “Billy Madison.”

For television, Deveau created costumes for the pilot of the hit television series “Desperate Housewives,” “Mr. Headmistress,” “F/X: The Series” and “Matrix” and for the telefilms “Harrison Bergeron” and “Thicker Than Blood: The Larry McLinden Story.”

BRIAN TYLER (Music) received his bachelor's degree from UCLA and his master's degree from Harvard University. His love of film was greatly inspired by his Academy Award®-winning art director grandfather Walter Tyler, who received 10 Academy Award® nominations.

Tyler began composing music at an early age and, by his mid-teens, was performing his own concert pieces around the United States and Russia. Tyler played piano, classical percussion, guitar, bass, and drums in various orchestras, music ensembles, choirs and bands before deciding to enter the world of film scoring.

His most recent projects are “Rambo,” the new installment of Sylvester Stallone’s film franchise; “The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift”; and the historical epic “Partition,” a romance set against the violent struggle between Pakistan and India in the 1940s. He also recently scored the Cannes award- winning film “Bug” for Academy Award®-winning director William Friedkin.

In 2005, Tyler scored three films: “Constantine” starring Keanu Reeves, based on the DC/Vertigo comic Hellblazer; director Bill Paxton's “The Greatest Game Ever Played”; and the science-fiction franchise film "Alien vs. Predator: Requiem."

Over the past six years, Tyler has composed over 35 scores and was awarded Cinemusic's designation as Best New Film Composer of the Year in 2001. In 2002, he received an Emmy nomination for his score for “The Last Call.” In 2006, he received an ASCAP Award for “Constantine.”

Other credits include “The Hunted,” "Dragonball," "War,” "Annapolis,” “Panic,” “Bubba Ho-Tep,” “Timeline,” “Frailty,” “Darkness Falls,” “Children of Dune” (for which Tyler produced a best selling soundtrack album), and two episodes of the series “Star Trek: Enterprise.”

JIM RYGIEL (Visual Effects Supervisor) started his career in 1980 when he joined Pacific Electric Pictures, one of the earliest companies to employ computer animation for the advertising and film markets.  In 1983, Rygiel's work took him to Digital Productions where he began work on “The Last Starfighter” (1984), a film notable for its pioneering use of digital imaging in place of models.  While at Digital Productions, Rygiel's commercial work was nominated for numerous awards, winning a prestigious CLIO Award for the introduction of the Sony Walkman.  From 1987 to 1989 Rygiel supervised numerous projects while at visual effects companies Pacific Data Images (PDI) and Metrolight.

In 1989, Rygiel was asked to form and head a computer animation department at Boss Film Studios.  This department of one grew to over 75 animators and 100 support staff within a little more than a year, winning several awards including a CLIO Award for the Geo Prism automobile commercial.  While at Boss, Rygiel supervised many feature films, both as Digital Effects Supervisor and Visual Effects Supervisor.  His credits there include “Starship Troopers,” “Species,” “Outbreak,” “Air Force One,” “The Scout,” “The Last Action Hero,” “Cliffhanger,” “Batman Returns,” “Alien 3” and “Ghost.”  After Boss Films’ closure Rygiel went on to supervise “The Parent Trap,” “Star Trek: Insurrection,” “Anna and the King,” “102 Dalmatians,” “The Lord of the Rings” Trilogy, “Click” and “Night at the Museum.” 

In 2002, Rygiel received the American Film Institute's first AFI Digital Effects Artist of the Year Award, three Academy Awards® and three British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards for Best Visual Effects for his work on “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.”  Rygiel is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as well as the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and The British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

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