The film is being produced by Spielberg, Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald from a screenplay by Sacha Gervasi and Jeff Nathanson from a story by Andrew Niccol. Patricia Whitcher, Jason Hoffs and Niccol are serving as executive producers.
Filming began on "The Terminal" on October 1, 2003 in Los Angeles. The majority of the movie's interiors will be shot on a two-and-a-half story recreation of a full-size operating terminal, which has been constructed in an enormous hanger located at Palmdale's famed "aerospace alley," north of Los Angeles. Filming will be completed on location in Montreal.
"The Terminal" tells the story of Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks), a visitor to New York from Eastern Europe, whose homeland erupts in a fiery coup while he is in the air en route to America. Stranded at Kennedy Airport with a passport from nowhere, he is unauthorized to actually enter the United States and must improvise his days and nights in the terminal's international transit lounge until the war at home is over.
As the weeks and months stretch on, Viktor finds the compressed universe of the terminal to be a richly complex world of absurdity, generosity, ambition, amusement, status, serendipity and even romance with a beautiful flight attendant named Amelia (Catherine Zeta-Jones). But Viktor has long worn out his welcome with airport official Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci), who considers him a bureaucratic glitch, a problem he cannot control but wants desperately to erase.
During his accidental exile, Viktor encounters and befriends an array of airport employees, some of whom aren't very far removed from their own assimilation to America. The supporting cast includes Chi McBride (TV's "Boston Public"), Diego Luna ("Y Tu Mama, Tambien"), Barry "Shabaka" Henley ("Ali"), Kumar Pallana ("The Royal Tenenbaums"), Zoe Saldana ("Drumline"), Eddie Jones ("Seabiscuit") and Jude Ciccolella ("Down With Love").
Steven Spielberg is a three-time Academy Award winner, earning two Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture for "Schindler's List," and a third Oscar for Best Director for "Saving Private Ryan." Producers Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald have recently produced or executive produced such hits as "Catch Me If You Can," "The Ring" and "Gladiator."
Behind the scenes on "The Terminal," Spielberg is also joined by a number of his previous collaborators, including Oscar-winning director of photography Janusz Kaminski ("Saving Private Ryan," "Schindler's List"), production designer Alex McDowell ("Minority Report"), costume designer Mary Zophres ("Catch Me If You Can") three time Oscar-winning editor Michael Kahn ("Saving Private Ryan," "Schindler's List," "Raiders of the Lost Ark") and composer John Williams, who won three of his five Oscars for his work on the Steven Spielberg films "Jaws," "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" and "Schindler's List."
