Production History (Sneakers) Sneakers (1992)
The script started right after WarGames and took nine years to reach the screen
Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes wrote WarGames (1983) — the film that, more than any other, put hacking on the American cultural map. The success of WarGames gave them the latitude to spend years on a follow-up about the same subject from the other side of the keyboard. Phil Alden Robinson, a friend of both, came aboard as co-writer and director.
"We started writing Sneakers right after WarGames. We thought it would take a year. It took nine." — Walter F. Parkes, The Hollywood Reporter (2017)
The trio spent the late 1980s consulting cryptographers, phone phreaks, and ex-intelligence officers. Len Adleman of RSA was an on-call mathematics consultant; the script was vetted for plausibility multiple times.
The script was vetted by working hackers and cryptographers
"We talked to phone phreaks, lockpickers, social engineers — people who do this for a living, legally and illegally. The crew in the movie is a composite." — Phil Alden Robinson, The A.V. Club (2012)
Whistler's character was based in part on Joybubbles (Joe Engressia), the blind phone phreak who could whistle the 2600 Hz tone that opened the long-distance system. Mother's monologues drew on the conspiracy literature of the era.
Casting Redford and Poitier was the producers' bet
Universal's first question was whether Redford would do an ensemble piece at sixty. He would; the part of Bishop was rewritten to lean into his weariness rather than his glamour. Poitier had not been on a film set in a decade.
"We sent Sidney the script not really expecting him to say yes. He read it and called the next day." — Lawrence Lasker, Hollywood Reporter (2017)
Kingsley had just done Bugsy (1991). Aykroyd was returning from the Ghostbusters afterglow into character work. Phoenix took the part because he wanted to work with Redford. Strathairn was a John Sayles regular pulled into the studio system for the first time on this film.
San Francisco stood in for itself; the climax was shot at a real Setec-style office park
Principal photography ran from December 1991 through April 1992. Locations were primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area — the rooftop sequence, the Bishop's office in a SoMa-style loft, the bridges, the airport, and several buildings on the peninsula that stood in for PlayTronics. Interior PlayTronics work was completed on Universal soundstages in Los Angeles.
"We wanted the look of competence. Real corporate buildings. Real keypads. Nothing futuristic. The point was that the world the box could break is this one." — Patrizia von Brandenstein, American Cinematographer (1992)
James Horner and Branford Marsalis built the score around a single saxophone line
Horner composed the orchestral material; Branford Marsalis recorded the soprano-saxophone solos that recur over the heist sequences and the closing credits. The score was widely praised as one of Horner's most restrained, in deliberate contrast to the bombast he had brought to Glory (1989) and would bring later to Braveheart (1995).
"Horner used the saxophone the way a noir score would use a clarinet. It signals that this is not actually a thriller. It is a hangout." — Jon Burlingame, Variety (2015)
Release and aftermath
Sneakers opened September 11, 1992, and finished its run at roughly $105 million worldwide on a $35 million budget — a clean commercial success. Robinson's next directing job did not arrive until Freedom Song in 2000; Lasker and Parkes moved into producing (Parkes would head DreamWorks production through the 2000s).