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The Mothman Prophecies
Directed by	Mark Pellington
Produced by	Tom Rosenberg Richard Hatem Gary Lucchesi
Written by	Richard Hatem Becky Johnston Alison Cross Ernest Marrero Lewis Klahr
Starring	Richard Gere Laura Linney Debra Messing Will Patton Lucinda Jenney Bill Laing Alan Bates
Music by	tomandandy
Cinematography	Fred Murphy
Editing by	Brian Berdan
Distributed by	Sony Pictures
Release date(s)	January 25, 2002
Running time	119 min
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$42,000,000 USD (estimated)
Gross revenue	$11,208,851 (USA) £762,516 (UK) €759,713 (Italy)
IMDb profile

The 2002 film The Mothman Prophecies is an adaptation of the 1976 book The Mothman Prophecies by parapsychologist and Fortean John Keel.

Richard Gere plays John Klein, a hot-shot Washington, D.C. reporter whose life suddenly takes a different turn after he and his wife (Debra Messing) are involved in a car accident. Although she suffers a non-fatal head injury, his wife’s CAT scans show that she has a brain tumor which quickly turns malignant. Shortly after her death, John discovers an assortment of cryptic drawings she had made of a strange creature.

Two years later, while driving to Richmond, Virginia, John becomes lost and inexplicably finds himself almost five hours off-course, arriving in the small town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. He soon becomes entangled in the personal stories and a chain of mysterious events, whereby local townspeople report strange supernatural encounters, along with weird lights and phone calls. With the help of the town sheriff (Laura Linney), John begins to investigate the encounters and determines that the common link is an apparently supernatural creature known as the Mothman, whose appearances seem to foretell cataclysmic events. Things take a decidedly personal and frightening turn when he realizes the eerie connections between his wife’s drawings, eyewitness accounts of the Mothman, and phone calls from an other-worldly, seemingly malevolent entity named Indrid Cold.

The Mothman becomes a personal obsession for John. He meets a Mothman expert (Alan Bates) who incites him to believe that there may be a tragedy in store for the small town.

The film adaptation of The Mothman Prophecies concentrates more on the personal stories and personalities of the characters and less on the investigation of UFOs and other strange phenomena upon which much of the book was based.

Most of the book’s characters have also been re-imagined. All have been renamed and in some cases, several characters have been merged into one or altered in some other way. Several have been removed entirely, such as the newspaper editor Mary Hyre, although her death somewhat mirrors that of one of the movie’s characters.

Of the book’s more mysterious entities, the Men in Black, or “MIBs,” have been removed; Indrid Cold, a relatively benign being in the book, is something more sinister in the film; and the Mothman itself rarely appears in the film. Instead, it is used to evoke subtle notes of supernatural horror for the filmgoer, versus functioning as the central, mysterious and provocative character as in the book.

In reality, 46 people died in the collapse of the Silver Bridge.

Aside from a few opening scenes filmed in Washington, D.C., the entire movie was filmed in the area of Pittsburgh and Kittanning, both in Pennsylvania. The scenes of a despondent Gere sitting on a park bench are on the University of Pittsburgh campus, the road montages are filmed on Pennsylvania Route 28, and the Chicago scenes are completely shot in downtown Pittsburgh’s Mellon Square and Trinity Churchyard environs as well as the entrance to the Duquesne Club. However, the Point Pleasant scenes were shot in Kittanning, Pennsylvania. The collapse of the Silver Bridge at the end of the film was actually filmed at the Kittanning Citizens Bridge in downtown Kittanning. In addition, the scenes shot at Mr. Smallwood’s house were filmed in Washington County on Pennsylvania Route 917. Pittsburgh’s Allegheny County Airport serves as the backdrop for the airfield scenes. Despite this relocation, several police officers from Point Pleasant appeared as extras in the film.^[1]

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• The film’s shooting script actually named five screenwriters: Richard Hatem, Becky Johnston, Alison Cross, Ernest Marrero, and Lewis Klahr. Lewis Klahr, better known as a collagist and experimental film-maker, was the final writer on the script. However, only Hatem (who wrote the first draft of the script) received credit on the finished film.^[2]
• Alexander Leek’s name comes from author John A. Keel, Leek being Keel backwards.
• The first appearance of Indrid Cold wasn’t a digital shot; it was done by blurring the camera.
• Leek’s story of how he tried to stop the destruction of a building but failed because no one would believe him is very reminiscent of Mark Pellington’s last film, Arlington Road.
• Mark Pellington makes two cameos in this film, one as the bartender and another as the voice of Indrid Cold over the phone.
• The clock radio in John Klein’s motel room reads: 6:14. It’s a biblical reference to John Chapter 6 verse 14, which reads, This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.
• The Mothman can be seen six times in the film.
• The budget was cut by $2,000,000 before filming began.^[3]
• In one minor goof, the back of a photograph is shown with writing in black permanent marker but when it is flipped again it is shown in green pen.
• There is a scene in the movie where Gere’s character is in his motel room, on the phone. You see his reflection in a mirror, but the reflection is moving and doing the same things he is about a second after he does it. They aren’t in sync. This is considered by some to be a gaffe, but could actually be deliberate (in order to add to the spooky atmosphere).
• The claim before the end credits of the movie that the collapse of the Silver Bridge was never explained is false. It was found to be caused by the failure of an eye-bar in a suspension chain.
• The quote, "It's like one day you're just driving along in your car, and the universe just points at you and says, 'Ah! There you are, a happy couple, i've been looking for you.'" is used on the recent Underoath dvd release, 777, on the MySpace Secret Show section just before the band comes onstage. A short part of the quote, though, is cut out, that part being "A happy couple", just making it, "...Ah! There you are, I've been looking for you."

• The Mothman Prophecies at the Internet Movie Database
• Film screen shots, trivia and information
• Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review
• A website discussing the film
• A site covering both the film and the real events it was based on
• Q&A with director Mark Pellington