Flags of Our Fathers reaches its 20th anniversary this week. Clint Eastwood’s 2006 war drama turned the Iwo Jima flag raising into a story about heroism, memory and sacrifice — and its making was anything but straightforward.
The Iwo Jima movie was shot far from Iwo Jima
Flags of Our Fathers is taken from the American viewpoint of the battle, but it was filmed almost entirely in Iceland and Southern California. A few scenes were shot in Chicago. Shooting ended early in 2006, before production for Letters from Iwo Jima began in March 2006.
The book rights began the project
DreamWorks Pictures purchased the film rights to the book in June 2000. Producer Steven Spielberg brought William Broyles to write the first drafts of the script, before director Clint Eastwood brought Paul Haggis to rewrite.
Eastwood added a companion film in Japanese
While reading about the Japanese perspective, particularly General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, Eastwood decided to film a companion piece. Letters from Iwo Jima was shot entirely in Japanese.
Auditions and a let-down for Jared Leto
Clint’s son Scott and Bradley Cooper auditioned for one of the leading roles. Jared Leto was originally cast as Rene Gagnon but had to back out due to a tour commitment with his band, Thirty Seconds to Mars.
58 days and a $55 million budget
Flags of Our Fathers was shot in the course of 58 days. It cost $55 million, although it was originally budgeted at $80 million; Variety subsequently downgraded the price tag to $55 million.
The box office told a surprising story
Despite critical acclaim, the film under-performed at the box office, earning just $65,900,249 worldwide against an estimated $90 million production budget. Its companion film Letters From Iwo Jima was more profitable with a box office run of $71 million on a budget of $19 million.
Critics and awards backed it
Flags of Our Fathers has a 76% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 239 reviews and a 79 on Metacritic. Roger Ebert gave it four stars out of four. Richard Roeper said it stands with the Oscar-winning Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby as an American masterpiece. The film earned two Academy Award nominations, for Best Sound Mixing and Sound Editing, and Eastwood earned a Golden Globe nomination for directing.
Spike Lee’s Cannes criticism
At the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, Spike Lee criticized Eastwood for not depicting Black Marines in Flags of Our Fathers. Eastwood responded that the film was specifically about the Marines who raised the flag on Mount Suribachi, none of whom were Black; Black Marines at Iwo Jima served in segregated auxiliary roles. Steven Spielberg later intervened between the two directors, and Lee sent a film to Eastwood for a private screening as a seeming token of apology.
What’s your favorite detail from Flags of Our Fathers?
Facts from Wikipedia: Flags of Our Fathers (film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Film images from TMDB. This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.