Meet Joe Black (1998, Martin Brest)
09/04/2024
Meet Joe Black is a 1998 film directed by Martin Brest, a remake of the 1933 film Death Takes a Holiday, previously revived in 1971 with the same name as the original. The film is inspired by the theatrical comedy of the same name by Alberto Casella, which tells of the legends about his summer villa - Villa Josephine, nicknamed the "cursed villa" - in Rocchetta Cairo.
Death came to Earth because he was intrigued by the emotions regarding love praised by Bill, which he will take with him at the end of the journey.
Meanwhile, Bill is ousted from the board of directors of his company by Drew, Susan's ex-boyfriend, who wants to merge with another company.
Filming of the film took place mainly in New York, USA.
The film's soundtrack, whose main theme is Whisper of a Thrill, was composed by Thomas Newman.
The film was released in US cinemas on November 13, 1998 and in Italy on January 29, 1999.
In addition to the full version of the film lasting approximately three hours, a short version was made for television and airline. Because of this modification of the film, which did not involve the majority of Bill Parrish's business, the director, Martin Brest, became very furious, so much so that he signed this version of the feature film with the nickname often used by disgruntled directors, Alan Smithee.
Roger Ebert gave the film three stars, but disliked the marginal plot and overly forced ending. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film four stars, but criticized the lack of depth of most of the characters.
On the site Rotten Tomatoes the film obtained a 46% approval rating from critics based on 50 professional reviews, calling it "glacially slow and not at all eventful" (the site's critical consensus reads: "Meet Joe Black is beautiful to watch and benefits from a likable cast, but that's not enough to make up for the punishing three-hour running time of this sluggish drama."
On IMDb the film was received with 7.2/10.
With an estimated budget of $90,000,000, the film grossed $142,940,096 worldwide. In Italy the film grossed €6,000,000.
