Empire of The Sun (film) - Production

Production

Warner Bros. purchased the film rights, intending Harold Becker to direct and Robert Shapiro to produce. Tom Stoppard wrote the first draft of the screenplay, on which Ballard briefly collaborated. Becker dropped out, and David Lean came to direct with Spielberg as producer. Lean explained, "I worked on it for about a year and in the end I gave it up because I thought it was too similar to a diary. It was well-written and interesting, but I gave it to Steve." Spielberg felt "from the moment I read J. G. Ballard's novel I secretly wanted to direct myself." Spielberg found the project to be very personal. As a child, his favorite film was Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai, which similarly takes place in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Spielberg's obsession with World War II and the aircraft of that era was stimulated by his father's stories of his experience as a radio operator on North American B-25 Mitchell bombers in the China-Burma Theater. Spielberg hired Menno Meyjes to do an uncredited rewrite before Stoppard was brought back to write the shooting script.

Empire of the Sun was filmed at Elstree Studios in the United Kingdom, and on location in Shanghai and Spain. The filmmakers searched across Asia in an attempt to find locations that resembled 1941 Shanghai. They entered negotiations with Shanghai Film Studios and China Film Co-Production Corporation in 1985. After a year of negotiations, permission was granted for a three-week shoot in early March 1987. It was the first American film shot in Shanghai since the 1940s. The Chinese authorities allowed the crew to alter signs to traditional Chinese characters, as well as closing down city blocks for filming. Over 5,000 local extras were used, some old enough to remember the Japanese occupation of Shanghai 40 years earlier. Members of the People's Liberation Army played Japanese soldiers. Other locations included Trebujena in Andalusia, Knutsford in Cheshire and Sunningdale in Berkshire. Lean often visited the set during the England shoot.

Spielberg attempted to portray the era accurately, using period vehicles and aircraft including three A6M Zero full-scale replicas and three restored P-51D Mustang warbirds from the UK. These P-51s were flown by the late Ray Hanna (who was filmed flying past the child star with the canopy back, waving), his son Mark and "Hoof" Proudfoot and took over 10 days of filming to complete due to the complexity of the planned aerial sequences, which included the P-51s actually dropping plaster-filled replica 500 lb bombs at low level (although bomb blasts were simulated). A number of large scale flying models were also used, but as the results were, in some cases, disappointing, Spielberg himself extended the film contract with the full-size examples and pilots on set in Trebujena, Spain.

Industrial Light & Magic designed the visual effects sequences with some computer-generated imagery also used for the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. Norman Reynolds was hired as the production designer while Vic Armstrong served as the stunt coordinator.