Flash of Genius (2008) on Netflix
Detroit professor Robert Kearns patents an intermittent windshield wiper and intends to build it himself. He says Ford took the design, and he wants the company to answer for it.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb7.0/1018,421 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes61%
Trailer
Plot summary
In the early 1960s, Robert Kearns teaches engineering in Detroit, is married to Phyllis, and has six children. On his wedding night in 1953, a champagne cork left him nearly blind in the left eye, and the steady sweep of wipers through light rain bothers that eye. He designs a blade that blinks every few seconds like an eyelid, builds a prototype in his basement with money from his friend Gil Previck, tests it in a fish tank, and patents it. Ford researchers had chased the same idea without success. Executive Macklin Tyler is impressed and asks for a business plan and unit pricing. Kearns, who intends to manufacture the wiper himself, rents a warehouse for a factory and delivers the figures and a sample unit.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Flash of Genius (2008)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film's title is drawn from a patent-law standard called "flash of genius" that only applied from 1941 to 1952 and required an invention to arrive as a sudden epiphany rather than through tinkering, even though inventor Robert Kearns's patent was actually filed in 1964.
- Marc Abraham, who had produced The Road to Wellville, Air Force One and Children of Men, had long been drawn to the Robert Kearns saga for his directorial debut because the inventor believed more in fairness and honesty than the money offered to make him drop his lawsuit.
- Marc Abraham submitted numerous revisions of the screenplay to Universal Studios chief Stacey Snider, who repeatedly told him, "This is not an easy script, and he's not a likable guy".
- Despite opening on nearly 1,100 screens, Flash of Genius earned only $2.2 million on its opening weekend and closed after three weeks with a $4.6 million worldwide total, well short of its $20 million budget.
