Wikipedia

The 6th Day

For other uses, seeThe Sixth Day (disambiguation).

The 6th Dayis a 2000 Americanscience fictionaction filmdirected byRoger Spottiswoodeand starringArnold Schwarzenegger,Tony Goldwyn,Michael Rapaport,Michael Rooker,Sarah Wynter,andRobert Duvall.In the film, a family man of the future is illegallyclonedby accident as part of a vast conspiracy involving a shady billionaire businessman, and is thrust into a struggle to clear his name and protect his family from the conspirators who seek to keep the cloning a secret. The title refers to theGenesis creation narrativeshared among theAbrahamic religions,where God created humanity on the sixth day of the universe's existence. The film wasTerry Crews' acting first appearance.

The 6th Day
Theatrical release poster
Directed byRoger Spottiswoode
Written byCormac Wibberley
Marianne Wibberley
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyPierre Mignot
Edited by
Music byTrevor Rabin
Production
companies
Distributed bySony Pictures Releasing
Release dates
  • October 28, 2000(2000-10-28)(TIFF)[1]
  • November 17, 2000(2000-11-17)(United States)
Running time
124 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$82 million[2]
Box office$96.1 million[2][3]

Schwarzenegger received a salary of $25 million for his role in the film.[4]The film received mixed reviews and was abox office failure,earning $96 million worldwide on a budget of $82 million.

Plot

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Following the successfulcloningofDolly the sheepin the 1990s, artificial cloning of animals has become commonplace by 2015.Human cloningis prohibited by "Sixth Day"laws, following a botched attempt.

Charter pilot Adam Gibson is hired for asnowboardingexcursion by Michael Drucker, billionaire owner of cloning corporation Replacement Technologies, who requires him to undergo a seemingly routine drug test. When Adam’s wife informs him that their daughter’s dog has died, he reluctantly visits one of Drucker’s “RePet” cloning stores, while his partner Hank poses as Adam and flies Drucker to the mountains, where they are killed by an assassin, Tripp.

Buying a life-sizeanimatronic“SimPal” doll for his daughter instead, Adam returns home to discover a clone of himself with his family. Before he can intervene, Adam is abducted by Marshall, Drucker’s head of security, and his agents Talia, Vincent, and Wiley. Adam escapes, killing Talia and Wiley, and goes to the police but is believed to be an escaped mental patient.

Drucker, somehow alive, assures reporters that he does not intend to have the Sixth Day laws repealed. However, he and his chief scientist, Dr. Griffin Weir, have secretly already perfected illegal human cloning, and revive clones of Talia and Wiley. Adam breaks out of the police station and is forced to kill Wiley again, before finding Hank at his apartment, still alive. He brings Hank to his house and contemplates killing his clone, but has second thoughts and reconsiders. Marshall and Talia arrive, forcing Adam to pose as his clone to send them away.

Returning to his apartment, Hank is again killed by Tripp, who is shot by Adam. A dying Tripp reveals he is ananti-cloningextremist who assassinated Drucker, the latter being subsequently cloned along with Hank. Marshall and Talia arrive, but Adam escapes in their vehicle after shooting off Talia’s fingers, taking her thumb to bypass the car’sbiometric lock.Adam uses the thumb to sneak into Replacement Technologies and confronts Dr. Weir, whose pursuit of cloning is driven by his wife Katherine’s cystic fibrosis she reveals to her husband that she knows she is the latest in a series of clones he has made in an attempt to cure her.

Weir explains that the blood and vision tests Adam underwent scanned his DNA and memories — captured as a “syncording” — in the event he needed to be cloned. He reveals Drucker was secretly cloned after dying years earlier to maintain control of his fortune, as clones have no legal rights. Believing both Adam and Hank were killed alongside Drucker, Weir cloned them to return to their lives and cover up Drucker’s murder and second cloning. Weir gives Adam the syncording proving Drucker has been cloned, warning that he may go after Adam’s clone and family.

Adam races to Clara’s school recital, where Talia and Vincent have already abducted his wife and daughter. Coming face-to-face with his own clone, Adam reveals their situation, and agrees to deliver the incriminating syncording to Drucker in exchange for his family. Weir confronts Drucker, who engineered the clones, including Katherine, withshortened lifespansas an insurance policy against betrayal. Drucker kills Weir, promising to resurrect him and Katherine as clones.

Sending a decoy helicopter to be destroyed, Adam lands on Drucker’shelipadand wreaks havoc until he is captured. Drucker reveals that Adam is actually the clone, proven by a marking inside his eyelid, but realizes the real Adam has also infiltrated the building. While the original Adam rescues his family, his clone fights off Drucker’s agents. They are finally killed, and a mortally wounded Drucker clones himself again, but the malfunctioning equipment creates a deformed, incomplete body. Adam and his clone escape in the helicopter with his family, destroying the facility and all its syncordings as Drucker falls to his death.

The real Adam arranges for his clone, who is discovered to not have a shortened lifespan like the other clones, to start a new life inArgentina,running a satellite office of their charter business. As a parting gift, the clone gives the family Hank's RePet cat, and the real Adam gives his clone a flying send-off.

Cast

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Production

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Joe Dantewas initially attached to direct the film, before Arnold Schwarzenegger signed on to star.[5]

The 6th Daywas filmed inVancouver,British Columbia,CanadaandToronto,Ontario,Canada.[6]

Release

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Theatrical

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The 6th Daypremiered at theTokyo International Film Festival.[1]It was released theatrically on November 17, 2000.

Home media

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The 6th Daywas released on VHS and DVD in the United States and Canada on March 27, 2001. The movie was released on video on the following dates:

Release Date Territory Format Notes
January 22, 2002 U.S. and Canada DVD Special Edition
October 28, 2003 U.S. and Canada DVD Schwarzenegger Action Pack:The 6th DayandLast Action Hero

ABlu-rayversion was released in the United States and Canada on April 8, 2008. It includes two featurettes but lacks the commentary from the DVD release.[7]

Reception

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Box office

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The film opened at #4 and grossed $13 million in its opening weekend. It eventually grossed $34 million in North America and $96 million worldwide,[2]whileVarietyreports $116 million.[3]

Critical response

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OnRotten Tomatoesthe film has an approval rating of 40% based on reviews from 117 critics, with a rating of 5.9/10. The site's consensus reads: "This offering from Arnold Schwarzenegger contains an intriguing, disturbing premise, but the film's execution is too routine and formulaic to make good use of it."[8]OnMetacriticthe film has a score of 49 out of 100 based on reviews from 30 critics.[9]Audiences polled byCinemaScoregave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.[10]

Roger Ebertof theChicago Sun-TimesgaveThe 6th Daythree out of four stars, remarking that it is not in the same league asTotal RecallandTerminator 2: Judgment Day,but that it nevertheless qualifies as a serious science fiction film. He also found problems with the cloning as depicted in the film, saying that "[his] problem with both processes is that while the resulting clone... might know everything I know... I myself would still be over here in the old container."[11]Kenneth Turanof theLos Angeles Timesdisliked the generic appearance of the film and Schwarzenegger'stypecastingas anaction hero.He gave the film two out of five stars.[12]Todd McCarthy ofVarietycalled it: "A mostly standard-issue latter-day Arnold Schwarzenegger actioner spiked with a creepily plausible cloning angle."[13]

Accolades

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The 6th Dayearned threeRazzie Awardnominations for Schwarzenegger: Worst Actor (as the real Adam), Worst Supporting Actor (as the clone of Adam) and Worst Screen Couple (Schwarzenegger as Adam and Schwarzenegger as the clone), but lost all three toBattlefield Earth.[14]The film was also nominated four times at the27th Saturn Awards,[15]but lost toX-Menfor Best Actor and Best Science Fiction Film,Hollow Manfor Best Special Effects andHow the Grinch Stole Christmasfor Best Make-Up.

See also

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References

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  1. ^abHerskovitz, Jon (2000-10-30)."Tokyo pledges to cut red tape for lensing".Variety.Retrieved2014-08-01.
  2. ^abc"The 6th Day".Box Office Mojo.Retrieved2014-08-01.
  3. ^abHarris, Dana (2002-07-17)."Arnold tells Morris agency hasta la vista".Variety.Retrieved2014-08-01.
  4. ^Grover, Ronald (2002-01-25)."Schwarzenegger Flexes Some Muscle".BusinessWeek.Retrieved2017-04-07.
  5. ^Cox, Dan (January 12, 1999)."Dante's 'Day' at Phoenix".Variety.RetrievedFebruary 17,2023.
  6. ^Barbara Vancheri (November 17, 2000)."Schwarzenegger battles the bad clone guys in 'The 6th Day'".Pittsburgh Post-Gazette."The 6th Day," shot mainly in Vancouver
  7. ^Jane, Ian (2008-04-16)."The 6th Day (Blu-ray)".DVD Talk.Retrieved2014-08-01.
  8. ^"The 6th Day (2000)".Rotten Tomatoes.Retrieved2014-08-01.
  9. ^"The 6th Day".Metacritic.
  10. ^"Cinemascore".Archived fromthe originalon 2018-12-20.
  11. ^Ebert, Roger(17 November 2000)."The 6th Day".Chicago Sun-Times.Retrieved2015-02-18.
  12. ^Turan, Kenneth(17 November 2000)."Arnold Lands in a Double Bind".Los Angeles Times.Retrieved2015-02-18.
  13. ^McCarthy, Todd(10 November 2000)."The 6th Day".Variety.
  14. ^Armstrong, Mark (2001-02-12)."News/Raspberry" Battlefields "Forever".E! Online.Retrieved2014-08-01.
  15. ^"X-Men Leads Sci-fi Awards Pack".ABC News.2001-04-04.Retrieved2014-08-01.
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