Project X (1987) on Netflix
Jimmy Garrett is posted to a secret Air Force project to care for its chimpanzees. He bonds with Virgil, a chimpanzee taught sign language, and suspects there is more to it.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb6.2/1012,351 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes75%
Trailer
Plot summary
Teri MacDonald, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, has taught a chimpanzee named Virgil to communicate in sign language. When her National Science Foundation grant is not renewed, the Air Force moves Virgil to a base in Lockridge, Florida, for a project involving flight simulation, and she is told he has gone to the Houston Zoo. Jimmy Garrett, an airman on the base, is assigned to the chimpanzee project. Jimmy and Virgil bond, and Jimmy finds that the chimpanzee has been taught sign language. He begins to wonder what the secret Air Force project is really being used for.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Project X (1987)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Producer Lawrence Lasker began the film at Warner Bros. with John Badham directing, but switched it to 20th Century Fox after Warner Bros. insisted on using small actors in chimpanzee suits instead of real chimpanzees.
- TV personality Bob Barker and the United Activists for Animal Rights accused the film's producers of animal cruelty; the American Humane Association, which had consulted on production, filed a $10 million defamation lawsuit, and in 1994 Barker's insurance company settled it for $300,000 over his objections.
- On 5 February 1989, Project X became the first film ever shown on Sky Movies in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
