Kate & Leopold | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | James Mangold |
Produced by | Cathy Konrad |
Written by |
Steven Rogers James Mangold |
Starring |
Meg Ryan Hugh Jackman Liev Schreiber Breckin Meyer Natasha Lyonne |
Music by | Rolfe Kent |
Cinematography | Stuart Dryburgh |
Edited by | David Brenner |
Distributed by | Miramax Films |
Release date
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Running time
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123 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $48 million (est) |
Box office | $76,019,048 (Worldwide) |
Kate & Leopold is a 2001 romantic-comedy fantasy that tells a story of a duke who travels through time from New York in 1876 to the present and falls in love with a woman in modern New York. The film is directed by James Mangold and stars Meg Ryan, Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber.
On 28 April 1876, Leopold, His Grace the 3rd Duke of Albany (Hugh Jackman), is a stifled dreamer. He has created a design for a primitive elevator, and has built a small model of this device. His strict uncle Millard (Paxton Whitehead) has no patience for what he characterises as a sign of Leopold's disrespect for the Monarchy, chastising him, and telling him he must marry a rich American, as the Mountbatten family finances are depleted. In response to his uncle's accusations of his blemishing the family name, Leopold counters that the new nobility is to be found in those who pursue initiatives, hence his interest in the sciences and inventions.
One day, the Duke finds Stuart Besser (Liev Schreiber), an amateur physicist (and great-great-grandson of Leopold) in his study perusing his schematic diagrams and taking photographs of them. He had seen him earlier at Roebling's speech about the Brooklyn Bridge, after he was laughing at the word "erection." Leopold follows Stuart and tries to save him from falling off the unfinished bridge, only to fall with him into a temporal portal between centuries that Stuart has used to travel to 1876.
Leopold awakens in 21st century New York City. He is at first confused and thinks that he has been kidnapped. Stuart says that he has created formulae to forecast portals in the temporal universe and that Leopold must stay inside his apartment until the portal opens again a week later. As Stuart takes his dog out, he is injured by falling into the elevator shaft, and is eventually institutionalized for speaking about his scientific discovery. According to Stuart's books, Leopold's unintentional time travel to the 21st century appears to have caused a disruption of all elevators, on account of his leaving the 19th century before he could register for a patent for his own device.