claiming that Fox had assured him that he would have complete autonomy and creative control and had made statements that implied that he was incompetent, emotionally unstable, and not qualified to direct a major motion picture. Most exteriors were filmed at the then-recently closed Junction City Prison in Junction City, southeast of Columbus in central Ohio. Additional locations included Bremen, New Lexington, and the Fairfield County Fairgrounds in Lancaster. The opening scenes of the prison bus departure show the skyline and a view up South Front Street in Columbus. Novelization A paperback screenplay novelization by the celebrated and award-winning American novelist and short story writer William Harrison was issued shortly in advance of the film's release (as was the custom of the era) by Ballantine Books. Reception Brubaker was a critical and commercial success. Produced on a budget of $9 million, the film grossed $37,121,708 in North America, earning $19.3 million in theatrical rentals, making it the 19th highest-grossing film of 1980. The movie was also well received by critics, holding a 75% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes based on 24 reviews. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote:The movie (refuses) to permit its characters more human dimensions. We want to know these people better, but the screenplay throws up a wall; they act according to the ideological positions assigned to them in the screenplay, and that's that. ... Half of Redford's speeches could have come out of newspaper editorials, but we never find out much about him, What's his background? Was he ever married? Is this his first prison job? What's his relationship with the Jane Alexander character, who seems to have gotten him this job? (Alexander has one almost subliminal moment when she fans her neck and looks at Redford and, seems to be thinking unpolitical thoughts, but the movie hurries on.) Brubaker is a well-crafted film that does a harrowingly effective job of portraying the details of its prison, but then it populates it with positions rather than people." Awards Wins Motion Picture Sound Editors: Golden Reel Award. Best Sound Editing. Nominations Academy Awards: Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen; W.D. Richter (screenplay/story) and Arthur A. Ross (story). See also List of American films of 1980 Arkansas Prison scandal References External links 1980 films 20th Century Fox films 1980s prison drama films American prison drama films Films scored by Lalo Schifrin