2018 film by Christian Rivers
Mortal Engines is a 2018 post-apocalyptic steampunk film, based on Philip Reeve's 2001 novel. Directed by Christian Rivers and written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson, it stars Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan, Hugo Weaving, Jihae, Ronan Raftery, Leila George, Patrick Malahide, and Stephen Lang. An American–New Zealand co-production, the film is set in a post-apocalyptic world where entire cities have been mounted on wheels and motorised, and practice municipal Darwinism.
Jackson purchased the rights to the book in 2009, but the film languished for several years before being officially announced in 2016. Jackson picked Rivers, who won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for his work on Jackson's King Kong, to make his feature-length directorial debut with the project, and also brought on several members of his production teams from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies. Filming took place from April to July 2017 in New Zealand.
Mortal Engines had its world premiere on November 27, 2018, in London, was theatrically released in New Zealand on December 6, 2018, and in the United States on December 14, 2018. The film received mixed reviews from critics and is one of the biggest box office bombs of all time, grossing $84 million against a production budget of $100–150 million and losing Universal an estimated $175 million.
Plot summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.