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Flyboys (film)

2006 film by Tony Bill

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 13, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Flyboys is a 2006 war drama film starring James Franco, Martin Henderson, David Ellison, Jennifer Decker and Jean Reno. It was directed by Tony Bill, a pilot and aviation enthusiast, and written by Phil Sears, Blake T. Evans, and David S. Ward. Set during World War I, the film follows the enlistment, training, and combat experiences of a group of young Americans who volunteered to become fighter pilots in the Lafayette Escadrille, the 124th air squadron formed by the French in 1916. Flyboys was released on September 22, 2006 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures in the United States and on June 1, 2007 by Verve Pictures in the United Kingdom. It received mixed reviews from critics, who criticized the performances, screenplay and visual effects. It was a box-office bomb, grossing $17.8 million against its $60 million budget.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Flyboys (film)” as 2006 film by Tony Bill. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2006, 1916, 2007—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Flyboys, film and Tony can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 2006 film by Tony Bill. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The first chronological checks are 2006, 1916 and 2007.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Flyboys (film)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Flyboys (film) primary sources, Flyboys (film) archive and Flyboys research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Flyboys (film)”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Flyboys (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.