Meet Joe Black
| Meet Joe Black | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Martin Brest |
| Produced by | Martin Brest |
| Written by |
Bo Goldman Kevin Wade Ron Osborn Jeff Reno |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Thomas Newman |
| Cinematography | Emmanuel Lubezki |
| Edited by |
Joe Hutshing Michael Tronick |
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Production
company |
City Light Films
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| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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181 minutes (original) 129 minutes (Alan Smithee cut) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $90 million |
| Box office | $142,940,100 |
Meet Joe Black is a 1998 American fantasy romance film produced by Universal Studios, directed by Martin Brest and starring Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins and Claire Forlani, loosely based on the 1934 film Death Takes a Holiday. It was the second pairing of Hopkins and Pitt after their 1994 film Legends of the Fall.
Billionaire media mogul Bill Parrish is considering a merger between his company and another media giant, and is about to celebrate his 65th birthday with an elaborate party planned by his eldest daughter, Allison. He begins to hear mysterious voices, which he tries with increasing difficulty to ignore. His youngest daughter, Susan, a resident in internal medicine, is in a relationship with one of Bill's board members, Drew. She is considering marriage, but Bill can tell she's not passionately in love. When she asks for the short version of his impassioned speech, he simply says, "Stay open. Who knows? Lightning could strike!"
Susan meets a vibrant young man at a coffee shop. She is instantly enamored but fails to even get his name. Minutes after their encounter (but unbeknownst to her), the man is struck by multiple cars in what appears to be a fatal motor vehicle accident. Death arrives at Bill's home in the body of the young man, explaining that Bill's impassioned speech has piqued his interest. Given Bill's "competence, experience, and wisdom", Death says that for as long as Bill will be his guide on Earth, Bill will not have to die. Making up a name on the spot, Death is introduced to the family as "Joe Black".
Bill's best efforts to navigate the next few days, knowing them now to be his last, fail to keep events from going rapidly out of his control. Drew is secretly conspiring with a man bidding for Parrish Communications. He capitalizes on Bill's strange behavior and unexplained reliance on Joe to convince the board of directors to vote Bill out as Chairman, using information given to him inadvertently by Bill's son-in-law, Quince, to push through approval for the merger which Bill had decided to oppose. Quince is devastated.
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Wikipedia