Hearts in Atlantis

In an interview included on the DVD, Sir Anthony Hopkins discussed psychic ability and synchronicity with director Scott Hicks. During that conversation he recounted how he came to be in Florence, shooting Hannibal (2001) and reading a non-fiction book by William Goldman. In the book Goldman mentioned having worked with Hopkins before and referred to Kathy Bates in Misery (1990). Hopkins recalled thinking it would be interesting to work with Goldman again and to work on a Stephen King story. Two days later a call came saying Goldman was preparing a reading of a screenplay based on King's story, and Hopkins accepted immediately.

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Director Scott Hicks described the scene in which Bobby argues with his mother about handing Ted over to the Low Men as a monumental performance by Anton Yelchin (his comment is at 01:25:58), and said that one day before shooting Anton called him while he was in New York City about the rewriting of the scene Scott had done with William Goldman. Anton told Scott he preferred the previous draft and felt he could play it much more strongly. Scott adds that he trusted Anton's instincts, tore up the rewrite and went back to the original script, and this is the scene that resulted.

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Director Scott Hicks stated that the "11" on the window, after the flashback ends, was intended to tell the audience that Bobby Garfield remembers his entire flashback as only eleven seconds of real time, before the condensation on the window evaporates (commentary 01:31:46).

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This was Anton Yelchin's (Bobby Garfield) first theatrical film.

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Director Scott Hicks said that in the scene where Sir Anthony Hopkins (Ted) imitates a fart, one of the hardest things was making Anton Yelchin (Bobby) laugh (commentary 14:55). Anton had grown up in an environment where laughing with an open mouth was considered rude; so, even if Hopkins barked like a dog during Anton's close-up, doing so was not natural for him. Anton's smiling, for example from 48:41 to 48:42, was not forbidden; in an off-camera moment, after Scott said "cut," the camera caught him grinning, and the producers liked the effect.

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Director Scott Hicks points out that the digital effects are slowed down on Bobby (Anton Yelchin) leaving Ted's (Sir Anthony Hopkins's) room after finding Ted in a trance and hugging him, thinking something had gone wrong (commentary 36:28). During editing, they decided that a slower motion segment was needed to imply that by touching Ted, part of Ted's psychic perception was transferred to Bobby. Because it was too late to reshoot the scene with a high-speed camera (which preserves image quality), digital slowing was used. He also points out the in-camera slow motion of Monte Man's (Alan Tudyk's) hands (40:56), the digital slow motion of Monte Man's face (41:05), and the in-camera slow motion of Bobby's face in the carnival scene (41:20).

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The reconciliation between Bobby and his mother in this film is very different from the novel, in which Bobby grows up and becomes a delinquent boy. Director Scott Hicks (at commentary 01:29:31) stated that this is an example of the reinterpretation of characters that cinema requires.

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Screenwriter William Goldman, who was actively adapting Stephen King's bestselling science fiction epic Dreamcatcher (2003), said the following about the novel that this film is based on: "I was very affected by it. I love King most when he isn't dealing with monsters, when he's dealing with human monsters. What affected me most in 'Hearts' is Bobby, Carol and Ted, that is, the things they deal with while trying to get through their lives. It's very touching and very beautifully done. It has a wonderful narrative. Mind."

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Mika Boorem also played Carol's daughter Molly.

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Ted mentions the Library Policemen. This is the title of another story in Stephen King's "Four Past Midnight" anthology.

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This is the only film or television series adapted from a Stephen King story in which no deaths occur on screen. Although two characters die between the flashbacks and the frame story, these deaths are not shown on screen.

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According to director Scott Hicks, the "Atlantis" of this film is the lost realm of childhood (commentary at 32:53), and this is not at all the symbolism evoked in readers of Stephen King's book "Hearts in Atlantis"; there, the second story, also titled "Hearts in Atlantis," concerns students who go to college as a refuge to avoid serving in the Vietnam War and become addicted to the card game called "hearts."

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When Bobby (Anton Yelchin) encounters Harry Doolin (Timothy Reifsnyder) after Carol Gerber (Mika Boorem) is attacked, director Scott Hicks mentioned that in the novel and the screenplay this is a premeditated attack by Bobby, who ambushes and beats Harry (commentary 01:27:16). However, Scott Hicks felt that unless it was somehow self-defense rather than premeditated, the audience's sympathy for Bobby would be lost.

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Scott Hicks (at commentary 28:50) states that the dialogue between Ted and Bobby about Bronko Nagurski's comeback game is entirely an invention of screenwriter William Goldman (who had seen the game) and is not mentioned in Stephen King's text. To Hicks, it provided a cinematic way to emphasize the bond between Ted and Bobby through the players' performances, the camera's gradual involvement, and the faint sounds of the action being described.

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Garfield's house was filmed in Staunton, Virginia, but the story's details come from Connecticut, such as Bobby's (Anton Yelchin's) library card (around seven minutes) and the license plate of Don Biderman's (Adam LeFevre's) car (around fifty-seven minutes), yet director Scott Hicks explains (at commentary 57:12), "We had to shoot a little further south, because autumn was coming down on us, and the further south you go, the later autumn arrives."

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The newspaper boy shown from 01:07:27 to 01:07:38 is the same boy who, from 52:06 to 52:45, is at the bicycle shop with his father wanting to buy the Schwinn bicycle Bobby wanted, but who now uses his new bicycle to deliver papers. Director Scott Hicks stated that he did not expect viewers to grasp this detail (at commentary 01:07:31).

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Scott Hicks mentioned that in Stephen King's story, Ted and the Low Men are aliens from the Dark Tower multiverse (at commentary 09:14). This was something he did not want to go into in this film, preferring to focus on the story of the human drama between the main characters.

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Bronislau "Bronko" Nagurski (1908-90) was a Canadian-born American football player. He played at the University of Minnesota (1927-29) and for the Chicago Bears (1930-37). The game discussed in the film took place in 1943, during World War II, at a time when professional football teams were short of players. Bronko Nagurski returned to the Bears for one season, scoring a touchdown in the Bears' championship victory over the Washington Redskins.

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Another difference between the novella and the film is the ending. In the film, Bobby says he never saw Ted again. In the novel, however, Bobby, somewhat older but still a child, receives an envelope full of rose petals from Ted. Bobby then realizes that this means Ted had once again escaped the Low Men.

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Hope Davis and Anton Yelchin also played mother and son in the film Charlie Bartlett (2007).

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The obituary Bobby reads for John "Sully" Sullivan says he was killed in a traffic accident. He died this way in the book as well, and the circumstances of his death are described in the short story "Why We're in Vietnam."

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In 1990, novelist and Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman, who had adapted Stephen King's "Misery" (1987) to universal acclaim, signed on immediately to adapt King's new book "Hearts In Atlantis" (1999) for the screen after reading it.

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At roughly fifty-six minutes in, the Sullivans' chestnut-brown station wagon with the white roof is a 1958 Packard, of which only one hundred fifty-nine were produced.

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Brie Larson auditioned for the role of Carol Gerber.

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Anton Yelchin and Mika Boorem also appeared as the two main child actors who befriend Morgan Freeman in Along Came a Spider (2001). That film was likewise shot in 2001, the same year Hearts in Atlantis was filmed.

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It is one of two Stephen King film adaptations to contain the phrase "Easy Peasey Japanesey," the other being The Shawshank Redemption (1994).

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Scott Hicks states that at 12:09, when Bobby first speaks to Ted, a real moth appeared in the porch light, but that the moths at 12:18 and 12:26 were digital, shown as part of various measures taken to make the scene look more realistic even though it was shot on set, due to the restrictions Anton Yelchin's age placed on his participation in night shooting. Despite the use of a moth wrangler (not specifically credited), only a single real moth appears in the film.

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Director Scott Hicks calls the castle-ruin figurine at the bottom of the carnival aquarium an "Atlantis reference" (at commentary 37:40).

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The name "Ted Brautigan" probably refers to two writers from the 1960s counterculture: Ted Berrigan and Richard Brautigan.

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Before the end credits sequence there is a dedication: "This film is dedicated to Piotr Sobocinski (1958 - 2001), a great cinematographer, collaborator, artist and friend."

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The film is set in 1960 and in January 2000.

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Although the film never mentions it as such, John Sullivan's nickname from the novel appears: in the opening scene, the obituary in the newspaper refers to him as Sully-John.

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Bobby Garfield was born on August 29, 1949.

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Jeremy Sumpter was initially considered for the role of Bobby Garfield.

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Anthony Hopkins and Hope Davis later appeared in Proof (2005).

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William Goldman had previously been mentioned by name in Stephen King's 1986 novel "It."

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