Surrogates shooting trivia

Rosamund Pike and Jonathan Mostow on the set of Surrogates
Rosamund Pike and Jonathan Mostow on the set of Surrogates

In anticipation of the January 26th release of Surrogates on DVD and Blu-ray disc, Touchstone Pictures has release this interesting set of “Surrogates Factoids”. Read on…

  • First-time author Robert Venditti came up with the unique premise while working at Top Shelf Publications in their shipping warehouse in suburban Atlanta.
  • Surrogates was filmed on location in Massachusetts, primarily in Boston and surrounding suburbs.
  • In addition to mounting the film in several neighborhoods around Boston—the Leather District, the Financial District, the South End, Chestnut Hill, and the home of his alma mater, Cambridge, among them—director Jonathan Mostow also filmed in such Boston suburbs as Worcester, Taunton and Hopedale.
  • Studies led the film’s scripters to a Japanese scientist named Hiroshi Ishiguro, who has been using a plastic version of himself to lecture around the world without leaving his Osaka office. They also uncovered a rhesus monkey in North Carolina that has been wired to make a robot in Kyoto walk, merely by thinking.
  • The actual robotic look of the main cast and hundreds of extras appearing in the film came to life through the combined efforts of the film’s two makeup departments—the key makeup under the guidance of Oscar-winner Jeff Dawn (Terminator 2: Judgment Day), and the special prosthetic designs courtesy of another Oscar winner, Berger (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe).
  • Some of Howard Berger’s unique designs included the crucified corpse of the surrogate Greer after it’s destroyed; shotgun wounds that graphically reveal the mechanical innards of the robotic doubles.
  • Director Jonathan Mostow directed Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, which earned $450 million in global receipts in the continuation of one of Hollywood’s most fruitful franchises.
  • The Surrogates Blu-ray contains the DVD extras plus exclusive bonus features that go into the heart of the film’s intriguing premise: A More Perfect You: The Science of Surrogates, Breaking the Frame: A Graphic Novel Comes to Life, and Four Deleted Scenes
  • In addition to his film and television work, director Jonathan Mostow also recently created The Megas for Virgin Comics, a four-issue graphic novel series set in an alternative reality, in which the United States is ruled by a monarchy.