It’s been 30 years of Seven which by our math means 210. (Jokes!) The David Fincher-directed gross-out detective story set in perpetual rain starred Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, and if you were lucky enough to see it before its ending got spoiled, you may remember how you felt leaving the theater: down!
But the movie was a hit, grossing close to $330 million on a reported $30 million budget. Word of mouth was strong, much of it in a “this tastes rancid, you try it” kind of way. Even though Fincher had to fight with the studio to get the movie done his way — the dark ending included — executives are reliable in that when something makes a lot of dough, they are eager for a repeat.
Peter Sorel
Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt checking out the charts and graphs to figure out the mystery of ‘Seven’
Despite Seven’s conclusion, which put everything in a tidy box, the studio did initiate a sequel. What’s even stranger is that a Seven sequel kinda-sorta exists, and is hiding in plain sight with a two-time Oscar winner in the cast.
The movie in question is Solace, from 2105. Yeah… don’t feel too bad if you don’t quite remember it. It never had a theatrical release in the United States and got pretty lousy reviews.
Solace’s life began as a spec script written by two people in the very early aughts. One was Ted Griffin, a successful screenwriter whose credits include Ocean’s Eleven and Matchstick Men, who also worked on The Shield and Terriers. (He was also married to Sutton Foster for 10 years, if you were curious.) The other was Sean Bailey, who later became head of production for live-action movies at the Walt Disney Company for 14 years.
The project was acquired up by New Line Cinema, which produced Seven, and had the story retrofitted to be a vehicle for Freeman’s character, Detective Somerset. (Never mind that the whole arc of his character is that he’s about to retire, unless you interpret the last line of voiceover to mean he is going to hang around forever like Batman.)
At some point along the way (details are a little fuzzy), the decision to align the new work with Seven lore was dropped. Solace went back to being an independent gruesome detective story, though with a supernatural twist.
Lionsgate
A promotional still of Anthony Hopkins in the movie ‘Solace’
The most notable thing about the movie is the absolutely stacked cast. Top of the bill is Anthony Hopkins, who had already won one Oscar and was a few years away from his second.
Hopkins plays Dr. John Clancy, who has the ability to see the future based on touching someone or something. (There’s a bit of The Dead Zone here.) He is recruited by FBI psychologist Katherine Cowles (Abbie Cornish to join her and FBI detective Joe Merriwether (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) to help solve a series of elaborate murders. Clancy needs some convincing at first, as he has become reclusive following the death of his daughter. Merriwether is a skeptic, who initially isn’t too keen on the partnership. The baddie is played by Colin Farrell.
Right now you are thinking that this sounds like it has serious potential. How has this movie flown under the radar this long?
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Anthony Hopkins onstage in 2016, a year after ‘Solace’ made its way into the marketplace
Solace was directed by Brazilian director Afonso Poyart. It remains his only project with Hollywood talent, so one can surmise that he didn’t have the greatest experience.
The project began production in 2012 and screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015. It was never released theatrically in the United States, though it wasn’t a total wash financially, securing $22 million internationally. (It made $20,000 in Oman, according to BoxOfficeMojo.) Critics weren’t too enthused about it, securing it a not-so-hot 36 on Metacritic and an even worse 24 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. A critic for the online journal Slant wrote that “it joylessly coopts the hoariest stylistic tics and narrative tropes from your run-of-the-mill 1990s thriller.”
Concerning the Seven connection, Farrell said in an interview that Solace “explored a similar genre to Seven, but it’s different,” which is about as close to a non-committal statement as you could get.
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But now that you know about it, you may want to decide for yourself. You can rent Solace today for four bucks on platforms like Amazon and Apple.
The trailer is linked below. Be sure to watch the whole thing to hear Hopkins misuse the phrase “begs the question.”
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‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source uk.news.yahoo.com ’
