• When Sonmi-451 and the other Fabricants are shown, just before bedtime, drinking their daily rejuvenation drink, the large Korean letters on the drink boxes say, "Be New" in English.
• With a budget of over $100,000,000, Cloud Atlas is one of the most expensive independent films to date.
• In 2005, while on the London set of V for Vendetta (2005), Natalie Portman gave a copy of the original novel to Lana Wachowski, who became deeply interested in it. A year later, both Wachowski siblings wrote a first draft of the screenplay. Tom Tykwer, a friend of the Wachowskis, was invited to co-author several subsequent drafts with them in the following two years, constantly keeping in mind observations by the book's author himself, David Mitchell, while looking for international investors. In all those years, Portman was promised the role of Sonmi-451, but had to turn down the role at the last minute after becoming pregnant in 2010. However, she is given a special thanks in the closing credits.
• Vyvyan Ayrs (Jim Broadbent) comes into Robert Frobisher's room saying he's heard music in his dream from a violin. The music is, of course, the Cloud Atlas Sextet. In Neo Seoul, an old man (also Broadbent) is shown playing the Sextet on an ErHu (or Chinese Violin).
• All cast members have several roles in the final film, spanning different times, races and even sexes. This was achieved through prosthetics, wardrobe and tight production times to switch actors between units. For instance, Halle Berry described the experience of filming as a Jewish woman in the 1930s under the direction of Tom Tykwer one day, then switching to an old tribal woman under the helm of Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski, and then again as a environmentalist in the 1970s, all in the same week.

Contributors

• 
  Viraglio
  422 items »
• 
  halfgoofy
  18 items »
• 
  wdweditorial
  10 items »

More...

• Songs (1) keyboard_arrow_right
• Quotes (49) keyboard_arrow_right
• Trivia (30) keyboard_arrow_right
• Photos (52) keyboard_arrow_right
• Lists (121) keyboard_arrow_right
• Awards (41) keyboard_arrow_right
• Fans (8) keyboard_arrow_right

• 
  Elysium
• 
  Alien: Covenant
• 
  Mad Max: Fury Road