21 Bridges

The project was announced as 17 Bridges. By Chadwick Boseman’s account, shortly before he shot the speech that shuts the island down, the production admitted it was not sure the number was 17. Someone counted. It was 21, and the title changed. Boseman said he prides himself on research and wished he had known. Manhattan is the setting, but much of the shoot happened in Brooklyn and in Philadelphia, including a Rittenhouse Square restaurant and Chinatown. Brian Kirk hangs the chase on one lockdown due to expire at 5 a.m., and on robbers who enter a shop expecting 30 kilograms of cocaine and find 300; the shootout follows. Boseman produced the film and pushed for Sienna Miller. Miller later said that when the studio would not meet the fee she asked for, Boseman gave up part of his own salary; she only told Empire after his death. This was his last film to open in cinemas, and the two that followed went to Netflix. It was made for $33 million and took $49.9 million worldwide. A good fit if you want the lockdown treated as a clock with a fixed expiry and the manhunt driven down into the subway. Not for anyone who wants the corruption traced patiently up the chain; the film settles that question inside one night.