What’s Different About Ang Lee’s Gemini Man?

For the vast majority of films ever made, 24 frames per second has been the standard cinematic framerate. If you’ve seen any movie, chances are it was shown at that speed. Ang Lee, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Brokeback Mountain, is set on doing things a little bit different. He’s already experimented with the framerate on his films before, and his next feature film, Gemini Man starring Will Smith, is abandoning 24 frames per second, too.

Gemini Man was filmed to be screened at 120 frames per second, something only ever done once before. The other film to be shot in 120 FPS was Lee’s last outing, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, released in 2016. Manipulating a films’ frame rate is something a couple of filmmakers have experimented with over the years, with Lee being one of the pioneers behind it; however, before Lee took the leap from 24 frames to 120, other filmmakers also experimented with higher frame rate movies. Most notably, the Hobbit Trilogy directed by Peter Jackson. All three of those films were shot and screened at 48 frames per second. 

Whenever high frame rates are brought up, people point to how strange these films seem to look. Strange doesn’t necessarily mean bad, but it’s a completely different pace for the viewer’s eye to process images. Interestingly, the discussion around Billy Lynn’s use of high frame rate technology wasn’t as prominent as discussions surrounding The Hobbit. One would think making the leap from 48 to 120 FPS would be cause for interest, but the upcoming release of Gemini Man has garnered more interest than Billy Lynn ever did.

It could be because Billy Lynn didn’t have a big star like Will Smith in the lead, or because the movie bombed at the box office ($30.9 million gross on a $40 million budget). If you were to ask Lee, it’s mainly because the studio behind Billy Lynn didn’t give it the push it needed. A lot of theaters decided not to play the movie at its high frame rate, either because it wasn’t made available by the studio or the projectors couldn’t handle the film. Technological advancement like that should be playing in as many theaters as possible in 120 FPS, just like how Avatar was widely shown in 3-D. According to Lee, the studios behind Gemini Man (Paramount and Skydance) are taking a different approach and embracing his latest film. 

The script for Gemini Man was originally set to go into production in 1997. Disney owned the rights to the script at the time, but due to the lack of technological advancements dropped the project. Since then, multiple star actors have been attached such as Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Nicholas Cage, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Sean Connery. Ang Lee ended up signing on to direct since he thought the premise would be perfect to exercise his technological muscles. Not only was he determined to capture it in 120 frames, but he also took on the task of making a doppelganger of 51-year-old Will Smith appear to be in his 20’s.