Sucker Punch is a 2011 fantasy action film directed by Zack Snyder and co-written by Snyder and Steve Shibuya. It is Snyder's first film based on an original concept. The film stars Emily Browning as "Babydoll", a young woman who is committed to a mental institution. As she collects items she needs to escape, she enters a series of fantasy worlds where she and her fellow inmates are strong, experienced warriors. Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung, Carla Gugino, Oscar Isaac and Scott Glenn also star.
The film was released in both conventional and IMAX theatres in the United States on March 25, 2011. The film received generally negative reviews and underperformed at the box office, grossing $89.8 million against its $75–$82 million production budget. The film has since made a cult following after its release.
Plot
Following the death of her mother, a young woman is framed for her sister's murder by their stepfather, who is infuriated after being excluded from the will, and is subsequently committed to a mental institute. Upon arrival, her stepfather bribes orderly Blue Jones to forge psychiatrist Vera Gorski's signature to have her lobotomized and she is given the nickname Babydoll.
Babydoll slips into a fantasy world in which the asylum is a brothel owned by mobster Blue and she and the other patients are sex slaves. She befriends fellow patients Amber, Blondie, Rocket, and Rocket's sister, Sweet Pea, and imagines Dr. Gorski as their dance instructor. Blue intends to sell Babydoll's virginity to the High Roller; in reality, a doctor is scheduled to perform her lobotomy. Babydoll performs an erotic dance during which she fantasizes she is in feudal Japan, meeting the Wise Man. He tells her that she needs four items to escape: a map, fire, a knife and a key. There is a fifth unrevealed item that only she can find which requires "a deep sacrifice" and will bring a "perfect victory". She fights three samurai giants, then finds herself back in the brothel.
Babydoll convinces the four other girls to join her in escaping. She dances as a distraction while the others obtain the necessary tools. During her dances, she fantasizes about adventures that mirror the escape efforts, such as infiltrating a bunker protected by World War I German soldiers to gain a map (as Sweet Pea copies a map of the building in Blue's office), storming an Orc-infested castle to retrieve fire crystals (as Amber steals a lighter from the mayor), and fighting robots on a train to disarm a bomb (as Sweet Pea steals a kitchen knife from the Cook). In the last fantasy, Rocket sacrifices herself, paralleled by the Cook fatally stabbing Rocket as she protects her sister.
Blue overhears Blondie relaying Babydoll's plan to Gorski. He fatally shoots Amber and Blondie. Babydoll stabs him with the kitchen knife and steals his master key, then starts a fire to distract the orderlies as they seek an escape. Babydoll deduces that the fifth item is her own sacrifice, and that this is Sweet Pea's story. She distracts the men long enough to allow Sweet Pea to escape.
In the asylum, the surgeon completes Babydoll's lobotomy. Gorski notes that during her short stay, Babydoll stabbed an orderly, started a fire, and helped another girl escape. The surgeon, who doesn't agree with the procedure, asks Gorski why she authorized it, and Gorski realizes that Blue has been forging her signature. The police apprehend Blue as he attempts to rape Babydoll. As he is being arrested, Blue incriminates Babydoll's stepfather.
Sweet Pea is stopped by police as she tries to board a bus, but the driver (the Wise Man) misleads the police and lets her board.
Cast
Production
Development
Sucker Punch is described by Snyder as "Alice in Wonderland with machine guns". The film first gained attention in March 2007. Snyder put the project aside to work on Watchmen first. The film was co-written with Steve Shibuya, who authored the original script on which the story is based. Snyder directed and produced with his wife and producing partner, Deborah Snyder, through their Cruel and Unusual Films banner. Wesley Coller served as executive producer.
Warner Bros. Pictures announced in early 2009 that they would distribute Sucker Punch due to the success of Snyder's previous film, Watchmen. "They've never said, 'Ahh, it could have been shorter', or, 'Too bad it's so R-ish.' And that's really cool. I'm challenging them again with Sucker Punch." In early interviews, Snyder stated that he would make Sucker Punch an R-rated film, but a later interview stated that he was aiming for it to be rated PG-13. In its theatrical release, the movie was ultimately rated PG-13. Snyder cut many crucial scenes before the film's release in order to satisfy the MPAA's censors, but claimed that the home media release of the film will be a director's cut and closer to his original vision.
When Snyder was in San Diego hosting a Blu-ray live screening of Watchmen for San Diego Comic-Con, he handed out T-shirts for Sucker Punch featuring the first art for the film. The art was designed by Alex Pardee of Snafu Comics, with title art work by Los Angeles graffiti artist Galo Canote. Pre-production began in June 2009 in Canada. Snyder had also added that he enjoyed the freedom of filming his own original script. Photographer Clay Enos was hired to take still pictures on set and to take portraits of the main actors.
Casting
Before casting started in March 2009, Snyder revealed his ideal cast for the feature film. He chose to go with an all-female cast in this film saying that "I already did the all-male cast with 300, so I'm doing the opposite end of the spectrum."
Snyder had tapped Amanda Seyfried first for the lead role, Babydoll. When asked if Seyfried was up for the role, Snyder said, "We'll see. We're trying to, so ... She's great. It would be great if it worked out". Snyder had also offered roles to Abbie Cornish, Evan Rachel Wood, Emma Stone, and Vanessa Hudgens. However, Seyfried turned it down due to a conflict in schedule with her HBO series Big Love. Browning agreed to replace Seyfried in the role. During the confirmation of her involvement, Hudgens, Wood, Cornish, and Stone were all still in talks. According to Brie Larson in a 2020 video on YouTube, she mentioned that she auditioned for Sucker Punch.
Wood dropped out of the project due to scheduling conflicts with her recurring role in HBO's True Blood and her stage production of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. She was later replaced by Malone for the role of "Rocket".Zack Snyder adds two to Sucker Punch! (April 20, 2009) Chung was signed up to play "Amber"; Emma Stone had been offered the part but declined due to a scheduling conflict with her film Easy A. Freida Pinto was also considered for the role of "Amber" before it went to Jamie Chung. Gugino, who was cast as "Madam Gorski", a psychiatrist in the asylum, previously worked with Snyder on Watchmen. Hamm was confirmed in late August 2009 to play "The High Roller". Isaac was also tapped at around the same time. Snyder confirmed that Glenn agreed to be involved in the project, portraying "The Wise Man".
Training Prior to filming, the cast had twelve weeks of training and fight evaluations, beginning in June 2009 in Los Angeles and continuing through filming. The leads in the film were trained to deadlift up to for their roles. Damon Caro, the stunt coordinator and fight choreographer from 300 and Watchmen, Snyder's previous films, was hired for the action design, stunt training and fight choreography for the movie. The other cast members started training without Hudgens while she was involved with other projects, including Beastly. Abbie Cornish said that the rest of the cast were training six hours a day, five days a week in martial arts, swords and empty hand choreography. Jena Malone has stated that her daily routine comprised four hours of warmups and mixed martial arts wushu training, then three hours of weight training, then firearms training and tactical positioning, and then pole-dancing lessons. Snyder said that when the girls are fighting, "[like] they're on their way to kill a baby dragon, they've killed all of these orc-like creatures and they're entering a door [and] it's this classic, real Navy SEAL style room clearing. They have machine guns but they're fighting mythic creatures, impossible creatures. The hand to hand stuff is all brutal, because Damon [Caro] did all the [fights] in Bourne and it has that vibe to it." Snyder remarks that in the girls' imaginations "they can do anything".
Production and design Pre-production began in Los Angeles in June 2009 then moved to Vancouver in July. Principal photography began in September 2009 in Vancouver, and concluded in January 2010. With an $75–82 million budget, post-production began in September 2009 and was expected to last until January 2010 in Vancouver and Toronto. Originally, production would have started in June 2009, but it was postponed. Production concluded on January 22, 2010. Snyder confirmed that prior to the set production date, he already shot some fantasy sequences for Sucker Punch. Snyder said the film is a "stylized motion picture about action and sort of landscapes of the imagination and things of that nature". Snyder had also been decided on the film's title for some time, stating it is a pop-culture reference. "It's about hopefully what the movie feels like when you watch it, more than a specific 'Oh, it's a story of this person.' It's all stylized."
The film includes an imaginary brothel that the five girls enter in the alternate reality, where singing and dancing take place. The fantasy sequences include dragons, aliens, and a World War I battle. Snyder expressed his interest in the film's content:
On the other hand, though it's fetishistic and personal, I like to think that my fetishes aren't that obscure. Who doesn't want to see girls running down the trenches of World War One wreaking havoc? I'd always had an interest in those worlds – comic books, fantasy art, animated films. I'd like to see this, that's how I approach everything, and then keep pushing it from there.
Rick Carter served as production designer while the visual effects of the film were done by Animal Logic with 75 visual effects specialists, and the Moving Picture Company (MPC) who were awarded over 120 shots. Sucker Punch operates on three levels – a reality, then a sub-reality where the psych ward world shifts into a strange high-roller's brothel. The final level is made up of a dream world where more action sequences that are removed from time and space take place. Warner Bros. announced earlier that Sucker Punch would be released in 3D format. Snyder describes the conversion into 3D as a completely different process. However, it was later announced that the film would not be presented in 3D. Snyder filmed a "Maximum Movie Mode" interactive Blu-ray commentary for the film's home media release.
Snyder wanted to design the film as something with no limits, considering that he co-wrote the script from an original idea. He added that he wanted it to "be a cool story and not just like a video game where you're just loose and going nuts." Snyder also noted the influence of Asian iconography, particularly Japanese elements such as samurai, anime, and mecha.
Title Although the title Sucker Punch is not explained in the film, Snyder has mentioned that there are two reasonably valid ways to interpret it:
Andrew O'Hehir, writing in Salon, sees the film's title as its essential theme:
Music and dance