Million Dollar Baby | |
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Directed by | Clint Eastwood |
Screenplay by | Paul Haggis |
Based on | Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner by F.X. Toole |
Produced by |
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Starring |
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Narrated by | Morgan Freeman |
Cinematography | Tom Stern |
Edited by | Joel Cox |
Music by | Clint Eastwood |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures (North America) Lakeshore International (international) |
Release dates |
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Running time | 132 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $30 million [1] [2] |
Box office | $216.8 million [3] |
Million Dollar Baby is a 2004 American sports drama film starring Hilary Swank. It is directed, co-produced, scored by and starring Clint Eastwood from a screenplay written by Paul Haggis, based on stories from the 2000 collection Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner by F.X. Toole, the pen name of fight manager and cutman Jerry Boyd. It also stars Morgan Freeman. The film follows Margaret "Maggie" Fitzgerald (Swank), an underdog amateur boxer who is helped by an underappreciated boxing trainer (Eastwood) to achieve her dream of becoming a professional.
Million Dollar Baby was theatrically released on December 15, 2004, by Warner Bros. Pictures. It received critical acclaim and grossed $216.8 million worldwide. The film garnered seven nominations at the 77th Academy Awards and won four: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (for Swank), and Best Supporting Actor (for Freeman). It has since been cited as one of the best films of the 2000s, the 21st century and of all-time. [4] [5]
Margaret "Maggie" Fitzgerald, a waitress from the Ozarks, enters the Hit Pit, a rundown boxing gym in Los Angeles operated by Frankie Dunn. Dunn is a cantankerous Irish-American trainer, estranged from his daughter. Maggie asks Frankie to train her, but he refuses because he does not want to train women and believes Maggie is too old. Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris, Frankie's friend and the gym's handyman, allows her to train at the Hit Pit regardless. Frankie's prize prospect, "Big Willie" Little, signs with rival manager Mickey Mack after becoming impatient with Frankie rejecting offers for a championship bout, so Maggie gets her chance.
Maggie fights her way up in the women's amateur boxing division with Frankie's coaching. Since she has earned a reputation for quick knockouts, Frankie bribes managers to put their trainee fighters against her. Scrap, concerned when Frankie rejects several offers for big fights, arranges a meeting for Maggie with Mack, but out of loyalty to Frankie, she declines. Frankie bestows Maggie a Gaelic nickname, embroidered on her boxing robe, Mo Chuisle, but does not tell her its meaning. The two travel to Europe as she continues to win. Maggie eventually saves enough of her winnings to buy her mother a house, but her mother berates Maggie for endangering her welfare checks, claiming that everyone back home is laughing at her.
Frankie is finally willing to arrange a title fight. He secures Maggie a $1 million match in Las Vegas against the WBA women's welterweight champion, Billie "the Blue Bear" Osterman, a German ex-prostitute who has a reputation as a dirty fighter. Maggie begins to dominate the fight, but Billie knocks her out with an illegal sucker punch from behind after the bell rings to end the round. Maggie lands hard on her corner stool, breaking her neck and leaving her a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic.
Frankie goes through the five stages of grief, seeking multiple doctors' opinions in denial, lashing out in anger at Scrap, and trying to bargain with God through prayer. He later apologizes to Scrap and blames himself for Maggie's injuries. Scrap tells him not to as Maggie owed it to him for getting her shot at the world championship.
While in the hospital, Maggie looks forward to a visit from her family. They arrive late, having first toured Disneyland and Universal Studios Hollywood. Accompanied by an attorney, their sole concern is to get Maggie's assets transferred to them. Disgusted, she orders them to leave and threatens to report their welfare fraud if they try to contact her again.
Maggie develops bedsores and undergoes an amputation for an infected leg. She asks Frankie to help her die, declaring that she had everything she wanted out of life. A horrified Frankie refuses, so Maggie later bites her own tongue in an attempt to bleed to death. Knowing the fatherly affection Frankie has developed for Maggie, Frankie's priest warns him that he would never find himself again if he were to go through with Maggie's request. Frankie sneaks into the hospital one night, unaware that Scrap is watching from the shadows. Just before administering a fatal injection of adrenaline, he tells Maggie the meaning of "mo chuisle": "my darling, and my blood", then gives Maggie a final goodbye kiss. He leaves and retires from boxing altogether. Scrap writes to Frankie's daughter, informing her of her father's true character.
After being fired from the television series Family Law , Paul Haggis wrote the script on spec, and it took four years to sell it. [6] [7] The film was stuck in development hell for years before it was shot. Several studios rejected the project even when Clint Eastwood signed on as actor and director. Even Warner Bros., Eastwood's longtime home base, would not agree to a $30 million budget. Eastwood persuaded Lakeshore Entertainment's Tom Rosenberg to put up half the budget (as well as handle foreign distribution), with Warner Bros. contributing the rest. Eastwood shot the film in less than 40 days between June and July 2004. [1] [2] Filming took place in Los Angeles and film sets at Warner Bros. Studios. [2] The titular phrase 'million dollar baby' was used as an insult during pre-fight publicity by Sonny Liston to Muhammad Ali, the latter of whom was an underdog at the time. Eastwood had his daughter Morgan Colette appear in a cameo as a girl who waves to Hilary Swank's character at a gas station. [8] [9]
Eastwood had confidence in Swank's acting, but upon seeing Swank's small physique, he had concerns, "I just thought, 'Yeah, this gal would be great. If we can get her trained up. If we can get a little bit more bulk on her, to make her look like a fighter'...She was like a feather. But what happened is, she had this great work ethic." [10]
Consequently, to prepare for her role, Swank underwent extensive training in the ring and weight room, gaining 19 pounds of muscle, aided by professional trainer Grant L. Roberts. She trained for nearly five hours every day, winding up with a potentially life-threatening staphylococcus infection out of blisters on her foot. She did not tell Eastwood about the infection because she thought it would be out of character for Maggie. [10]
Million Dollar Baby initially had a limited release, opening in eight theaters in December 2004. [11] In its later wide release opening, the film earned $12,265,482 in North America and quickly became a box-office hit both domestically and internationally. It grossed $216,763,646 in theaters; $100,492,203 in the United States, and $116,271,443 in other territories. The film played in theaters for six and a half months. [3]
On Rotten Tomatoes, Million Dollar Baby has an approval rating of 90% based on 269 reviews, with an average rating of 8.40/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Clint Eastwood's assured direction—combined with knockout performances from Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman—help Million Dollar Baby to transcend its clichés, and the result is deeply heartfelt and moving." [12] On Metacritic it has a weighted average score of 86 out of 100, based on reviews from 39 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". [13] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A" on an A+ to F scale. [14]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars and stated that "Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby is a masterpiece, pure and simple," listing it as the best film of 2004. [15] Michael Medved stated: "My main objection to Million Dollar Baby always centered on its misleading marketing, and effort by Warner Brothers to sell it as a movie about a female Rocky , with barely a hint of the pitch-dark substance that led Andrew Sarris of the New York Observer...to declare that "no movie in my memory has depressed me more than Million Dollar Baby." [16] [17]
In early 2005, the film sparked controversy when some disability rights activists protested the ending. The Disability Rights Education Fund released a statement about the film in February 2005 that included the following: "Perhaps the most central stereotype fueling disability prejudice is the mistaken assumption inherent in the message of the movie that the quality of life of individuals with disabilities is unquestionably not worth living. This stereotype is contradicted by the personal experience of many thousands of people with significant disabilities in this country and around the world who view our own lives as ordinary and normal. It is further contradicted by plenty of hard data. Research overwhelmingly shows that people with disabilities find satisfaction in our lives to the same degree, or greater, than does the general public." [18]
The Chicago Tribune reported that protests against the film by disability activists occurred in Chicago, Berkeley, and other cities, and that Clint Eastwood had lobbied for weakening provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. [19] [20]
Wesley J. Smith in The Weekly Standard also criticized the film for its ending and for missed opportunities; Smith wrote "The movie could have ended with Maggie triumphing once again, perhaps having obtained an education and becoming a teacher; or, opening a business managing boxers; or perhaps, receiving a standing ovation as an inspirational speaker." [21]
Eastwood responded to the criticism by saying the film was about the American dream. [22] In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Eastwood distanced himself from the actions of characters in his films, noting, "I've gone around in movies blowing people away with a .44 Magnum. But that doesn't mean I think that's a proper thing to do". [23] Roger Ebert stated that "a movie is not good or bad because of its content, but because of how it handles its content. Million Dollar Baby is classical in the clean, clear, strong lines of its story and characters, and had an enormous emotional impact". [24]
The Gaelic nickname for Swank's character comes from the original phrase a chuisle mo chroí, meaning "O pulse of my heart"; one critic noted that the use of Gaelic in the film led to some interest in the language and the phrase. [25]
Million Dollar Baby was listed on many critics' top 10 lists for films released in 2004. [26]
Million Dollar Baby received the award for Best Picture of 2004 at the 77th Academy Awards. Clint Eastwood was awarded his second Best Director Oscar for the film, and he received a Best Actor in a Leading Role nomination. Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman received Best Actress in a Leading Role and Best Actor in a Supporting Role Oscars, respectively. Joel Cox, Eastwood's editor for many years, was nominated for Best Film Editing, and Paul Haggis was nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay award.
The film was named the third "Best Film of the 21st Century So Far" in 2017 by The New York Times. [4] It also ranked number 63 on Parade 's list of the "100 Best Movies of All Time" in 2023. [5]
Award | Category | Subject | Result |
---|---|---|---|
Academy Award | Best Picture | Clint Eastwood, Albert S. Ruddy and Tom Rosenberg | Won |
Best Director | Clint Eastwood | Won | |
Best Actor | Nominated | ||
Best Actress | Hilary Swank | Won | |
Best Supporting Actor | Morgan Freeman | Won | |
Best Adapted Screenplay | Paul Haggis | Nominated | |
Best Film Editing | Joel Cox | Nominated | |
ACE Eddie | Best Editing | Nominated | |
Amanda Award | Best Foreign Feature Film | Clint Eastwood | Nominated |
American Screenwriters Association | Discover Screenwriting Award | Paul Haggis | Won |
Art Directors Guild Award | Best Contemporary Feature Film | Henry Bumstead Jack G. Taylor Jr. | Nominated |
Billie Award | Best Film | Clint Eastwood Albert S. Ruddy Tom Rosenberg Paul Haggis | Nominated |
Black Reel Award | Best Supporting Actor | Morgan Freeman | Nominated |
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award | Best Actress | Hilary Swank | Won |
Best Supporting Actor | Morgan Freeman | Nominated | |
Best Director | Clint Eastwood | Nominated | |
Best Film | Clint Eastwood Albert S. Ruddy Tom Rosenberg Paul Haggis | Nominated | |
Casting Society of America Award | Best Casting for Feature Film: Drama | Phyllis Huffman | Nominated |
César Awards | Best Foreign Film | Clint Eastwood Albert S. Ruddy Tom Rosenberg Paul Haggis | Won |
Chicago Film Critics Association Award | Best Director | Clint Eastwood | Won |
David di Donatello Awards | Best Foreign Film | Clint Eastwood | Won |
Directors Guild of America Award | Outstanding Directing | Clint Eastwood | Won |
Director's Guild of Great Britain | Outstanding Director | Clint Eastwood | Nominated |
ESPY Award | Best Sports Movie | Clint Eastwood Albert S. Ruddy Tom Rosenberg Paul Haggis | Nominated |
Florida Film Critics Circle Award | Best Actress | Hilary Swank | Won |
Golden Globe Award | Best Actress | Won | |
Best Director | Clint Eastwood | Won | |
Best Supporting Actor | Morgan Freeman | Nominated | |
Best Motion Picture—Drama | Clint Eastwood Albert S. Ruddy Tom Rosenberg Paul Haggis | Nominated | |
Best Original Score | Clint Eastwood | Nominated | |
Grammy Award | Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media | Nominated | |
Motion Picture Sound Editors Award | Best Sound Editing (Sound Effects & Foley) | Alar Robert Murray Bub Asman David Grimaldi Jason King | Nominated |
MTV Movie Award | Best Female Performance | Hilary Swank | Nominated |
NAACP Image Award | Outstanding Supporting Actor | Morgan Freeman | Won |
National Board of Review Award | Best Film | Clint Eastwood Albert S. Ruddy Tom Rosenberg Paul Haggis | Nominated |
Best Director | Clint Eastwood | Nominated | |
Best Actor | Nominated | ||
New York Film Critics Circle Award | Best Director | Won | |
Producers Guild of America Award | Best Theatrical Motion Picture | Clint Eastwood Albert S. Ruddy Tom Rosenberg Paul Haggis | Nominated |
Phoenix Film Critics Society Award | Best Actress | Hilary Swank | Won |
Best Actor | Clint Eastwood | Nominated | |
Best Director | Nominated | ||
Best Supporting Actor | Morgan Freeman | Nominated | |
Best Film | Clint Eastwood Albert S. Ruddy Tom Rosenberg Paul Haggis | Nominated | |
Satellite Award | Best Actress | Hilary Swank | Won |
Best Adapted Screenplay | Paul Haggis | Won | |
Screen Actors Guild Award | Best Actress | Hilary Swank | Won |
Best Supporting Actor | Morgan Freeman | Won | |
Best Cast | Nominated | ||
The film was released on VHS and DVD on July 12, 2005, and all editions of the Region 1 DVD, except for the deluxe edition, came with a paperback copy of the book Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner. An HD DVD release was issued on April 18, 2006. [29] The Blu-ray Disc version was released on November 14, 2006. [30] It was the first Best Picture winner released on either high-definition optical disc format in the U.S.; it and Unforgiven (also starring Eastwood and Freeman) were the only ones released in the U.S. on HD DVD prior to the first one released in the U.S. on Blu-ray, Crash . [30] The film is also available online through video on demand and most major streaming platforms.
Clinton Eastwood Jr. is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series Rawhide, Eastwood rose to international fame with his role as the "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy of spaghetti Westerns during the mid-1960s and as antihero cop Harry Callahan in the five Dirty Harry films throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, among others, have made Eastwood an enduring cultural icon of masculinity. Elected in 1986, Eastwood served for two years as the mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.
Hilary Ann Swank is an American actress and film producer. She first became known in 1992 for her role on the television series Camp Wilder and made her film debut with a minor role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992). She then had her breakthrough for starring as Julie Pierce in The Next Karate Kid (1994), the fourth installment of The Karate Kid franchise, and as Carly Reynolds on the eighth season of Beverly Hills, 90210 (1997–98).
F.X. Toole is the pen name of boxing trainer Jerry Boyd. Toole is most noted for writing the 2000 collection of short stories Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner, which were adapted into the Oscar-winning movie Million Dollar Baby in 2004. F.X. Toole's posthumous novel Pound for Pound was released in 2006 to rave reviews. Cutman, a one-hour dramatic series set in the world of boxing, drawn from short stories by F.X. Toole, is in development by AMC Television.
Paul Edward Haggis is a Canadian screenwriter, film producer, and director of film and television. He is best known as screenwriter and producer for consecutive Best Picture Oscar winners Million Dollar Baby (2004) and Crash (2005), the latter of which he also directed. Haggis also co-wrote the war film Flags of Our Fathers (2006) and the James Bond films Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008). He is the creator of the television series Due South (1994–1999) and co-creator of Walker, Texas Ranger (1993–2001), among others. Haggis is a two-time Academy Award winner, two-time Emmy Award winner, and seven-time Gemini Award winner. He also assisted in the making of "We Are the World 25 for Haiti". In November 2022, he was found liable in a civil trial which alleged he raped publicist Haleigh Breest, and was required to pay $10 million in damages.
Clint Eastwood is an American film actor, film director, film producer, singer, composer and lyricist. He has appeared in over 60 films. His career has spanned 65 years and began with small uncredited film roles and television appearances. Eastwood has acted in multiple television series, including the eight-season series Rawhide (1959–1965). Although he appeared in several earlier films, mostly uncredited, his breakout film role was as the Man with No Name in the Sergio Leone–directed Dollars Trilogy: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), which weren't released in the United States until 1967/68. In 1971, Eastwood made his directorial debut with Play Misty for Me. Also that year, he starred as San Francisco police inspector Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry. The film received critical acclaim, and spawned four more films: Magnum Force (1973), The Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983), and The Dead Pool (1988).
Flags of Our Fathers is a 2006 American war drama film directed, co-produced, and scored by Clint Eastwood and written by William Broyles Jr. and Paul Haggis. It is based on the 2000 book of the same name written by James Bradley and Ron Powers about the 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima, the five Marines and one Navy corpsman who were involved in raising the flag on Iwo Jima, and the after effects of that event on their lives. Taken from the American viewpoint of the Battle of Iwo Jima, the film is a companion piece to Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima, which depicts the same battle from the Japanese viewpoint; the two films were shot back to back.
The 70th New York Film Critics Circle Awards, honoring the best in film for 2004, were announced on 13 December 2004 and presented on 9 January 2005.
The 8th Online Film Critics Society Awards, honoring the best in filmmaking in 2004, were given on 10 January 2005.
The 10th Dallas–Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards, given by the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association on 4 January 2005, honored the best in film for 2004. The organization, founded in 1990, includes 63 film critics for print, radio, television, and internet publications based in north Texas.
The 17th Chicago Film Critics Association Awards, presented in 2005, honored the best in film for 2004.
The 39th National Society of Film Critics Awards, given on 9 January 2005, honored the best in film for 2004.
The 5th Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards, honoring the best in filmmaking in 2004, were given on 20 February 2005.
Maureen Anne Shea Carranza is an American professional boxer. She held the WBC interim female featherweight title in 2011 and the IFBA super bantamweight title from 2014 to 2015, and challenged once for the WBA female super featherweight title in 2009. She is known as the "Real Million Dollar Baby" because of her work as the main sparring partner for Hilary Swank in her preparation for the 2004 movie, Million Dollar Baby.
"Macushla" is the title of an Irish song that was copyrighted in 1910, with music by Dermot Macmurrough and lyrics by Josephine V. Rowe.
Grant Roberts is a former Mr. World Canada bodybuilding champion, and is a personal trainer, nutritionist, lifestyle coach, actor, author and philanthropist. Roberts was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and is also a citizen of Ireland. He currently resides in Canada and the United States.
Clint Eastwood has had numerous casual and serious relationships of varying length and intensity over his life, many of which overlapped. He has eight known children by six women, only half of whom were contemporaneously acknowledged. Eastwood refuses to confirm his exact number of offspring, and there have been wide discrepancies in the media regarding the number. His biographer, Patrick McGilligan, has stated on camera that Eastwood's total number of children is indeterminate and that "one was when he was still in high school."
Shadow Boxers is a 1999 American documentary film about women's boxing, by director Katya Bankowsky, that focuses on the pioneering fighter Lucia Rijker. It also features an original soundtrack by Argentine singer and songwriter Zoel. Shadow Boxers had its international premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1999.
Cecilia Comunales is a boxer. She has a professional record of 14-1 and was the WBA women's lightweight champion of the world.
Bruce James MacVittie was an American actor. He was known for playing Danny Scalercio in the fourth season of The Sopranos, Mickey Mack in Million Dollar Baby, and Detective Eastman in Lonely Hearts.