Field of Dreams is a 1989 American sports magical realism drama film written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson, and based on Canadian novelist W. P. Kinsella's 1982 novel Shoeless Joe. The film stars Kevin Costner as a farmer who builds a baseball field in his cornfield that attracts the ghosts of baseball legends, including Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) and the Chicago Black Sox. Amy Madigan, James Earl Jones, and Burt Lancaster (in his final film role before his death in 1994) also star.
The film was released on April 21, 1989, by Universal Pictures in the United States, with Carolco Pictures releasing in other territories. It received positive reviews from critics while grossing $84.5 million against a $15 million budget, and was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Original Score, and Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2017, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.
Plot
Ray Kinsella, his wife Annie and daughter Karin live on their corn farm in Dyersville, Iowa. Troubled by his broken relationship with his deceased father John, a devoted baseball fan, Ray fears growing old without achieving his dreams.
While walking through his cornfield one evening, Ray hears a voice whispering, "If you build it, he will come"; then has a vision of a baseball diamond in the cornfield with the ghost of "Shoeless" Joe Jackson there. Annie agrees to convert part of their field into a baseball field, at risk of financial hardship.
As Ray builds the field, he tells Karin about the 1919 Black Sox Scandal. Time passes, and as Ray is beginning to doubt himself, Shoeless Joe appears one evening. After tossing a few balls around the field, Joe asks Ray if he can bring more players and he agrees. The next day, seven more Black Sox players come. Annie's brother Mark, who cannot see the players, warns them they are going bankrupt and offers to buy their land. The voice, meanwhile, urges Ray to "ease his pain."
The Kinsellas attend a PTA meeting, where Annie successfully prevents the ban of books by Terence Mann, a controversial author and activist from the 1960s. Ray deduces the voice was referring to Mann, who had named one of his characters "John Kinsella" and had once professed a childhood dream of playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. That night, both Ray and Annie have identical dreams about him and Mann attending a game together at Fenway Park, so Ray drives to Boston to find him.
Mann, now a disenchanted recluse, agrees to attend one game. There, Ray hears the voice, urging him to "go the distance", while seeing statistics on the scoreboard for Archie "Moonlight" Graham, who played a single 1922 game for the New York Giants but never got to bat. As Ray and Mann are about to part ways, Mann confesses hearing the voice and seeing the scoreboard.
The pair drive to Chisholm, Minnesota, learning that Graham, who became a physician, had died years earlier. Ray's research uncovers his obituary, showing he was a beloved and charitable doctor, but leaves out baseball. Ray suddenly finds himself in 1972, meeting an elderly Graham, who feels his calling was medicine, not sports, and declines their invitation to the field.
Heading to Iowa, Ray and Mann pick up a young hitchhiker who is looking to join a baseball team. He introduces himself as Archie Graham. Ray reveals his father forced him to play baseball after his own baseball career failed. At 14, after reading one of Mann's books, he stopped playing with him. They became estranged after he mocked John, saying "[he] could never respect a man whose hero [Joe] was a criminal."
Ray's greatest regret is not reconciling with his father before he died. Mann and Ray agree that the building of the field, and bringing Joe back, is Ray's penance for this estrangement. Arriving at the farm, they see various 1920s all-star players, fielding a second team. A game is played and Graham finally gets to bat.
The next day, Mark returns, demanding Ray sell the farm or the bank will foreclose. Karin insists people will pay to watch the ballgames. Mann agrees, saying that "people will come" to relive their childhood innocence. Ray and Mark scuffle, accidentally knocking Karin off the bleachers. Graham—knowing he will be unable to return after stepping off the field—saves Karin from choking on a hot dog. Now old Doc Graham again, he insists he has no regrets. Heading back toward the cornfield, the other players commend him, and before he disappears, Shoeless Joe calls out, "Hey, rookie! You were good." Doc Graham's eyes shine with tears, he smiles, and goes. Suddenly, Mark can see the players and urges Ray to keep the farm.
Shoeless Joe invites Mann to enter the corn, who happily accepts. Ray is angry at not being invited but Joe rebukes him, glancing towards the catcher at home plate, saying, "If you build it, he will come." The catcher removes his mask, and Ray recognizes his father as a young man. Ray and Annie then understand that "ease his pain" and "go the distance" both refer to him and his father.
John introduces himself to Ray, thanking him for the field. Ray introduces his father to his wife and daughter as "John". Later, as evening falls, John says goodnight to him and they shake hands. As John is walking towards the cornfield, Ray asks "Dad" if he would like to play catch. John gladly accepts, as a long line of cars is seen approaching the field, fulfilling the prophecy that "people will come" to the field to watch baseball.
Cast
In addition, Anne Seymour, who died four months before the film's release, makes her final film appearance, as Veda Ponikvar, the kindly Chisholm publisher who helps Ray and Mann. The identity of the actor who provided "The Voice", who speaks to Ray throughout the film, has remained unconfirmed since the film's release. Some believe it is Costner or Liotta, but the book's author W. P. Kinsella said he was told it was Ed Harris (Madigan's husband). Then-teenagers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were extras in the Fenway Park scene.
Production Film rights to W. P. Kinsella's novel were initially optioned in 1983 by producers William Blaylock and Peter W. Rea. After that option lapsed, 20th Century Fox acquired the rights in 1985, with Phil Alden Robinson attached to adapt the novel.
20th Century Fox executive Sara Colleton first discovered and optioned Shoeless Joe in the early 1980s. Colleton developed the project with producers Lawrence and Charles Gordon. Lawrence Gordon worked for 20th Century Fox, part of the time as its president, and repeatedly mentioned that the book should be adapted into a film, but the studio always turned down the suggestion because they felt the project was too esoteric and noncommercial—Fox's Production Chief, Scott Rudin, eventually withdrew his support and put Field of Dreams into turnaround. Meanwhile, Phil Alden Robinson went ahead with his script, frequently consulting Kinsella for advice on the adaptation. Lawrence Gordon left Fox in 1986 and started pitching the adaptation to other studios. Universal Pictures accepted the project in 1987 and hired University of Southern California (USC) baseball coach Rod Dedeaux as advisor. Dedeaux brought along World Series champion and USC alumnus Don Buford to coach the actors.
The film was shot using the novel's title; eventually, an executive decision was made to rename it Field of Dreams. Robinson did not like the name, saying he loved Shoeless Joe, and that the new title was better suited for one about dreams deferred. Kinsella told Robinson after the fact that his original title for the book had been The Dream Field and that the publisher had imposed the title Shoeless Joe.
Casting Robinson and the producers did not originally consider Kevin Costner for the part of Ray Kinsella because they did not think that he would want to follow Bull Durham with another baseball film. The role of Ray was first offered to Tom Hanks but he turned it down. Since Robinson's directing debut In the Mood had been a commercial failure, Costner also said that he would help him with the production. Amy Madigan, a fan of the book, joined the cast as Ray's wife, Annie.
In the book, the writer Ray seeks out is real-life author J. D. Salinger. When Salinger threatened the production with a lawsuit if his name was used, Robinson decided to rewrite the character as reclusive Terence Mann. He wrote with James Earl Jones in mind because he thought it would be fun to see Ray trying to kidnap such a big man.
Robinson had originally envisioned Shoeless Joe Jackson as being played by an actor in his 40s, someone who would be older than Costner and who could thereby act as a father surrogate. Ray Liotta did not fit that criterion, but Robinson thought he would be a better fit for the part because he had the "sense of danger" and ambiguity which Robinson wanted in the character. The role of Moonlight Graham was offered to James Stewart but he turned it down.
Burt Lancaster had originally turned down the part of Moonlight Graham, but changed his mind after a friend, who was also a baseball fan, told him that he had to work on the film.
Filming Filming began on May 25, 1988. The shooting schedule was built around Costner's availability because he would be leaving in August to film Revenge. Except for some weather delays and other time constraints, production rolled six days a week. The interior scenes were the first ones shot because the cornfield planted by the filmmakers was taking too long to grow. Irrigation had to be used to quickly grow the corn to Costner's height, with water being brought in by tanker from Lake Michigan. Primary shot locations were in Dubuque County, Iowa; a farm near Dyersville was used for the Kinsella home; an empty warehouse in Dubuque was used to build various interior sets. Galena, Illinois, served as Moonlight Graham's Chisholm, Minnesota. One week was spent on location shots in Boston, most notably Fenway Park.
Sue Riedel, a teacher in Iowa, was tasked with finding a farm that matched what the studio was looking for. "I had pictures of about 60 farms in the area," she said in 2021. "All of a sudden, I was driving around and I came up over this hill. There was this farm, the Lansing farm, and it just had this really picturesque look. I really thought it was the best property because it was set by itself. It was also totally surrounded by corn, which they really wanted."
Robinson, despite having a sufficient budget as well as the cast and crew he wanted, constantly felt tense and depressed during filming. He felt that he was under too much pressure to create an outstanding film, and that he was not doing justice to the original novel. Lawrence Gordon convinced him that the end product would be effective.
During a lunch with the Iowa Chamber of Commerce, Robinson broached his idea of a final scene in which headlights could be seen for miles along the horizon. The Chamber folks replied that it could be done and the shooting of the final scene became a community event. The film crew was hidden on the farm to make sure the aerial shots did not reveal them. A production assistant drove from the set into town and measured the distance between, deducing it would require 1,500 cars to fill the shot. Dyersville was then blacked out and local extras drove their vehicles to the field from Commercial Club Park. Riedel worked with local radio stations 92.9 KAT FM and WDBQ 1490 AM to broadcast the director's voice to the drivers of the cars. In order to give the illusion of movement, the drivers were instructed to continuously switch between their low and high beams.
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