Fall (2022 film)

Best friends Becky Connor and Shiloh Hunter are climbing a mountain with Becky's husband Dan, who is startled by a bat and falls to his death. A year later, Becky has given up climbing and become a recluse contemplating suicide. She has estranged herself from her father James, because he thinks Dan would not have grieved as she has if the situation were reversed. Just before the anniversary of Dan's death, Shiloh invites Becky to climb the decommissioned B-67 TV Tower in the desert before it is demolished. Shiloh suggests she scatter Dan's ashes from the top as a form of healing. A reluctant Becky accepts, hoping to finally move on from Dan's death. The next day, Shiloh and Becky arrive and climb several severely corroded ladders to a tiny platform at the top of the tower, where Shiloh goads Becky into momentarily free-hanging off the platform, while Shiloh records for her YouTube channel. Becky scatters Dan's ashes. As the two begin their descent, the ladder breaks. Becky falls but is caught by a rope connecting her to Shiloh. Shiloh pulls Becky back up and they realize they are now stranded hundreds of feet above the next intact ladder, at a height of almost two thousand feet above the ground. Becky's thigh has also been cut. Their backpack with their water and a small quadcopter drone falls onto a communications dish below them. Despite the remote location, Shiloh is confident that someone heard the crash of the ladder, but help does not arrive. They try to use their cellphones, but radio interference from the communications dish blocks the signal. Shiloh sends a message for help to her Instagram followers by packing her phone in a shoe and dropping it outside the range of the interference. The pair notice a man and his dog but cannot get his attention. The man joins another man camping in an RV nearby. They wait till night and use a flare gun found in an emergency box on the platform to alert the men. The men see the flare, but they steal Shiloh's car and drive off. The pair realize Shiloh's phone dropped in the shoe must have been smashed as still no help has come. Becky notices a tattoo on Shiloh's ankle: "1-4-3", a code Dan used to say "I love you" to Becky. Shiloh tearfully admits to a four-month affair that ended before Becky and Dan's wedding. The next day, Shiloh climbs down using the rope to retrieve the backpack with water but nearly falls. Shiloh injures her hands but successfully ties the rope to the bag, and Becky uses all her strength to pull both Shiloh and the backpack up. Becky has a nightmare of a vulture eating Shiloh's dead body. Becky uses power from the tower's aviation obstruction lighting warning light to charge the drone, whilst being attacked by a vulture, and sends the drone to a nearby motel with a written message for help, but the drone is struck by a truck and destroyed. Becky is delirious from dehydration, but in a brief lucid moment, she realizes Shiloh fell onto one of the communication dishes when retrieving the backpack and died; Becky has been hallucinating her presence since then. The next day, Becky is awakened by a vulture gnawing at her wounded leg; she kills the vulture and eats it. Her strength partially restored, she abseils down to the dish where Shiloh's body lies. Becky types a text message to her father on a second phone, then puts it in Shiloh's shoe and shoves them into Shiloh's body before pushing the body off the tower. Shiloh's body cushions the impact and the message transmits. James alerts emergency services, who then rush to the tower. Becky and James reunite and reconcile. ==Cast==

Filming in California inspired the look of the radio tower in the film. Originally the film was intended as a short. According to director Scott Mann, the idea came to him while he was shooting Final Score at a stadium in the UK: "We were filming at height, and off camera we got into this interesting conversation about height and the fear of falling and how that's inside of all of us, really, and how that can be a great device for a movie." Fall was filmed in IMAX format in the Shadow Mountains in California's Mojave Desert. The look of the fictitious B67 tower in the film was inspired by the real KXTV/KOVR tower, a radio tower in Walnut Grove, California, which is high and one of the tallest structures in the world. According to director Scott Mann, the filmmakers considered green screen or digital sets, but ultimately opted for the real thing. They decided to build the upper portion of the tower on top of a mountain so that the actors would appear to be thousands of feet in the air, even though in real life they were never more than a hundred feet off the ground. Currey and Gardner were offered stunt doubles, but they opted to perform their own stunts. Filming was difficult, because often weather such as lightning and strong winds posed a challenge. The film cost $3 million to produce. They ordered the creators to change or remove over 30 uses of the word "fuck" from the film so it could earn a PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association instead of a likely R rating, to increase profitability. As reshooting the scenes would have been time-consuming and expensive, they turned to Flawless, a company established in 2021 by Nick Lynes and Fall director Scott Mann, to deepfake the actor's faces and artificially redub instances of "fuck" to PG-13-acceptable epithets such as "freaking". The first project to use Flawless, Fall after editing received the PG-13 rating. According to Mann, "neural reshoots" were completed within two weeks during the final stages of post-production. This method was also applied to foreign language dubbing for overseas distribution including Spanish and Japanese. ==Release==

The film was released in theaters in the United States on August 12, 2022, by Lionsgate, who spent $4 million releasing and promoting the film. == Reception ==

Box office Fall grossed $7.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $14.6 million in other territories, for worldwide total of $21.8 million, against its $3 million budget. It made $923,000 on its first day, and went on to debut to $2.5 million. While finishing 10th at the box office, it was the highest-earning new release for the week. == Future ==

Following the film's growing popularity after its release on Netflix, a sequel was announced to be in development in March 2023. By October 2023, it was reported that two sequels were concurrently in development, with studios aiming to expand Fall into a franchise. Scott Mann was confirmed to serve as a producer on both films, in addition to co-writing and directing the third installment. The sequels are expected to feature returning characters from the original film alongside a new supporting cast. Production will be a joint venture between Tea Shop Productions, Flawless Productions Inc., and Capstone Pictures, with Mark Lane, James Harris, Christian Mercuri, and David Haring also attached as producers. Principal photography on the second film is scheduled to begin in June 2024. In May 2024, Peter and Michael Spierig were announced as co-directors of the sequel, working from a script co-written by Mann and Jonathan Frank. Mann is set to write and direct the third film following completion of the second installment. In September 2025, Harriet Slater, Arsema Thomas, and Tom Brittney were announced as the main cast. ==References==