Count Olaf
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When a massive fire kills their parents, three children are delivered to the custody of cousin and stage actor Count Olaf, who is secretly plotting to steal their parents' vast fortune. Director. Brad Silberling.
- (222K)
- Adventure, Comedy, Family
- Brad Silberling
- 2004-12-17
Olaf lost all legal right to the family's fortune when his marriage certificate signed by him and Violet bursts into flames thanks to the same contraption he used to burn down the orphans' home and kill their parents.
Mr. Poe, the family banker, manages their affairs and leaves them in the care of Count Olaf, a nefarious stage actor intent upon secretly obtaining their family fortune, which will remain in the custody of the bank until Violet turns 18. Olaf forces them to do heavy chores and belittles them.
- Plot
- Cast
- Production
- Marketing
- Story Notes
- Deviations from The Novels
- Trivia
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Chapter 1: The Bad Beginning
After the brief appearance of "The Littlest Elf" which may have been made to confuse much of the audience and make many suspect they were in the wrong theater, the film is narrated by detective and investigator Lemony Snicket(voiced by Jude Law), who occasionally appears in silhouettes and shadows. After visiting the grave of the Baudelaires, Snicket begins writing their story on a typewriter from the interior of a clock tower. Inventor Violet Baudelaire (Emily Browning), her bibliophile youn...
Chapter 2: The Reptile Room
Mr. Poe then sends the children to live with their "uncle"(Who is really their father's cousin's wife's brother), Dr. Montgomery Montgomery (Billy Connolly), a cheerfully eccentric herpetologist with a well-stocked 'reptile room' full of exotic and often fictitious reptiles, who is planning a trip to Peru. Their stay with Uncle Monty is cut short when Count Olaf appears in disguise as a man named Stephano, a replacement for Monty's assistant Gustav(who was kidnapped and tied to a train by Ola...
Chapter 3: The Wide Window
Events now take the children to the gloomy shores of Lake Lachrymose, where their "aunt" (not technically), Josephine Anwhistle (Meryl Streep), resides in a houseperched precariously on the edge of a cliff overlooking the waters of the vast lake. She has numerous irrational fears, and yet lives in a house populated with many of those things of which she is terrified by - her fear of realtors prevents her from moving. The house is held up by stilts and includes a large window facing the lake....
Count Olaf - Jim CarreyKlaus - Liam AikenViolet - Emily BrowningSunny - Kara Hoffman, Shelby HoffmanDevelopment
Nickelodeon Movies purchased the film rights of the entire A Series of Unfortunate Events book series in May 2000. Paramount Pictures, owner of Nickelodeon Movies, agreed to co-finance, along with Scott Rudin. Various filmmakers were interested in directing, among them Terry Gilliam and Roman Polanski. One of author Daniel Handler's favorites was Guy Maddin. In June 2002, Barry Sonnenfeld was hired to direct. He was chosen based on his previous collaborations with Rudin and his black comedy d...
Principal photography
Filming was originally set to begin in October 2003 before it was pushed back. Principal photography for Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events began on November 10, 2003, using the sound stages and backlot at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. Director Brad Silberling attempted not to use as many digital or chroma key effects as possible because he wanted the younger actors to feel as if they were working in a realistic environment. Olaf's mansion occupied two sound stages, while the g...
Design
Silberling, production designer Rick Heinrichs and costume designer Colleen Atwood all aimed for a "timeless" setting for the film, wanting to leave it ambiguous. Heinrichs also added in steampunk designs. In addition to Heinrichs and Atwood, Silberling hired Emmanuel Lubezki as the cinematographer because he was impressed with the trio's work on Sleepy Hollow(1999). Lubezki discussed the cinematic similarities to Sleepy Hollow, notably the monochromatic look of both films. He also choose a s...
In October 2002, Nickelodeon Movies hired Activision to create the film's tie-in video game. The agreement also included options for sequels. Director Brad Silberling delivered his first cut of the film in August 2004. Fearing his original version was "too dark", Paramount and DreamWorks conducted test screenings. It was then decided to re-edit A S...
Release
The film was released in the United States on December 17, 2004, in 3,620 theaters, earning $30.06 million in its opening weekend. In its run, A Series of Unfortunate Events faced competition from Meet the Fockers, The Aviator and Coach Carter. The film eventually grossed $118.63 million in US totals and $90.44 million elsewhere, coming to a worldwide total of $209.07 million. It is the highest grossing film under the Nickelodeon Movies banner. Paramount Home Video released the film on DVD in...
Critical reception
Based on 151 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, 71% of the critics enjoyed A Series of Unfortunate Events with an average score of 6.6/10. The film was more balanced with 31 critics in Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics" poll, receiving a 58% approval rating on a 6.5 score. By comparison, Metacriticcalculated an average score of 62/100, based on 37 reviews. Robert K. Elder of the Chicago Tribune praised Rick Heinrichs' production design and Jim Carrey for having a balanced performance as a scen...
Awards
Make-up designers Valli O'Reilly and Bill Corso won the Academy Award for Best Makeup. Production designer Rick Heinrichs and set decorator Cheryl Carasik (Art Direction), costume designer Colleen Atwood (Costume Design) and composer Thomas Newman (Original Music Score) were also nominated for their work at the 77th Academy Awards. The film lost the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film to Spider-Man 2, but was honored for its DVD special edition release. O'Reilly and Corso were also nominated f...
There are quite a few differences between the books and the film. Many of these involve some dark content being toned down, while others are related to time restrictions common to most book-to-movie conversions. Perhaps the biggest change in the film is the movement of The Marvelous Marriage. In the book, this scene takes place near the end of the ...
Although there are no official comics based on A Series of Unfortunate Events, this film was parodied by Madmagazine as the color comic feature "Limited Thickwit's A Series of Uneventful Misfortune...
These are some deleted scenes: https://www.youtube.com/embed/kp6yNi2UqA8Sep 14, 2024 · Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events is a 2004 film directed by Brad Silberling, written by Robert Gordon and based on the series of books by Lemony Snicket (pen name of Daniel Handler). The movie stars Kara and Shelby Hoffman, Emily Browning, Liam Aiken, with Jim Carrey as Count Olaf, and narrated by Jude Law as Lemony Snicket.
With Jim Carrey, Liam Aiken, Emily Browning, Kara Hoffman. When a massive fire kills their parents, three children are delivered to the custody of cousin and stage actor Count Olaf, who is secretly plotting to steal their parents' vast fortune.
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After their parents pass away, the three Baudelaire children are sent to stay with their closest living relative - who turns out to be the mind-bogglingly creepy Uncle Olaf, the owner of a rickety mansion who plans to kill the kids and claim their parents' inheritance for himself.
