Earth to Echo is a 2014 American science fiction adventure film directed by Dave Green, and produced by Robbie Brenner and Andrew Panay. The film was originally developed and produced by Walt Disney Pictures, who eventually sold the distribution rights to Relativity Media, which released the completed film in theaters on July 2, 2014. The movie is shot in found footage format.
Plot
Tuck, Munch and Alex are a trio of inseparable friends whose lives are about to change. Their Las Vegas suburb, Mulberry Woods, is being destroyed by a highway construction project that is forcing their families to move away. They mourn what will surely be the end of their happiness and friendship as their families move to separate ends of the country.
During the last week together before Alex moves to another foster home, Alex's phone, as well as his family's, begins "barfing"â€"displaying weird electronic signals. Munch and Tuck figure out these signals only start at a certain point in the neighborhood: Alex's backyard. At one point men from the construction crew visit their homes, offering to replace the "barfed" phones, which they claim are a result of an electrical shortage on the construction site, however the boys refuse to take advantage of this and keep their malfunctioning phones.
Munch discovers that the image on his phone is identical to a desert about 20 miles away. While at school, they plan to tell their parents they are sleeping out at one of the other boys' houses and then ride their bikes out to the desert to find what the image leads to.
That night, Tuck and Alex collect an extremely nervous Munch who has cold feet. After some convincing they get him to come, telling him it's their last night together before Alex, and eventually all three, move away. They bike out to the desert and what they discover is something beyond their wildest imaginations: a small friendly alien robot who has become stranded on Earth. In need of their help to rebuild his spaceship, the three friends come together to protect the alien, which they name Echo due to how he echo's them if they say "beep". Trying to find missing parts, they travel all over the desert and into a pawn shop; a house that happens to be Emma's, (a girl at their school all three have a vague crush on - and who then joins them to get away from her parents); a bar; and a closed amusement arcade.
However, they are being chased by government officials who have gone undercover as construction workers to investigate a spaceship that entered Earth's atmosphere near the construction site. They shot Echo down believing that if Echo rebuilds his ship it will kill everyone on Earth. After collecting a few of the pieces, the kids and Echo are caught, and the government is almost able to kill Echo before they escape. They steal the government's van and follow the last map on their phones to reach Echo's spaceship.
The map leads them to Alex's backyard; the spaceship was under the neighborhood all along. Tuck, Munch, and Emma are concerned that when the spaceship takes off it will destroy the small town, but Alex puts Echo in the spaceship anyway and tearfully says goodbye. The spaceship rebuilds itself by pulling each piece out of the ground, sparing the neighborhood any real damage, and blasts off into the sky. Only the four kids are around to see it (except Munch's mother, whom no one believes) and everyone thinks the holes appear because of a brief earthquake.
Having been wrong about their predictions regarding the spaceship, the government officials depart. The kids' parents discover that they were out all night, getting them in trouble. While they saved their neighborhood, Alex and Munch still have to move away; Tuck is able to stay but regrets that it isn't the same without his friends. Despite this, the group realizes that true best friends remain so despite whatever distance separates them, miles or light years, and they remain friends for life.
The four friends meet up again a year later on a camping trip and get a signal from Echo's home planet.
The after credits scene shows Alex after he moved out of Mulberry Woods filming in his dark bedroom, telling his old friends to watch as his phone gets the same signals it did before he and his friends biked into the desert to look for Echo.
Cast
Production
Earth to Echo was commissioned by Sean Bailey, Walt Disney Studios' President of Production, under the working title, Untitled Wolf Adventure, while the studio shifted leadership between Rich Ross and Alan Horn. After Horn's succession as Chairman and viewing a final cut of the film, he decided to put the film into turnaround. After Producer Andrew Panay met with Relativity President Tucker Tooley, Disney eventually sold the film's distribution rights to Relativity Media in 2013.
Distribution
Release
The film was initially scheduled for release on January 10, 2014 and April 25, 2014. After being delayed, Earth to Echo premiered on June 14, 2014 at the Los Angeles Film Festival and opened in theaters across the U.S. on July 2, 2014.
Marketing
The first trailer was released on December 12, 2013.
Home media
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 21, 2014.
Box office
Earth to Echo opened on July 2, 2014 in the United States in 3,179 theaters, ranking at #6, and accumulating $8,364,658 over its 3-day opening weekend (an average of $2,590 per venue) and $13,567,557 since its Wednesday launch. As of 27 December 2014, the film had grossed $38.9 million in the U.S. and $6.4 million overseas, for an total of $45.3 million worldwide, against a $13 million budget, making it a moderate box office success.
Critical reception
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes summarized the critical response: "Earth to Echo doesn't do itself any favors by beggaring comparisons to E.T., but for younger viewers, it should prove a reasonably entertaining diversion". The website surveyed 114 critics and, categorizing the reviews as positive or negative, assessed 55 as positive and 59 as negative. Of the 114 reviews, it determined a rating average of 5.4 out of 10. As of December 27, 2014 the website had assigned the film a score of 48%. Another aggregator Metacritic surveyed 31 critics and assessed 14 reviews as positive, 15 as mixed, and 2 as negative. Based on the reviews, it gave the film a score of 53 out of 100, which indicate "mixed or average reviews".
Awards and nominations
References
External links
- Official website
- Earth to Echo at the Internet Movie Database
