Christopher Nolan and his crew blew up an actual Boeing 747 for ‘Tenet’ because it was ‘more efficient’ than CGI
by Jacob Sarkisian
- In an interview with Total Film magazine, “Tenet” director Christopher Nolan said that they blew up an actual Boeing 747 for a set-piece in the upcoming movie.
- Nolan said that he had planned to “do it using miniatures and set-piece builds and a combination of visual effects,” but changed his mind.
- Nolan said: “We started to run the numbers … It became apparent that it would actually be more efficient to buy a real plane of the real size, and perform this sequence for real in camera.”
- “Tenet” star Robert Pattinson called the stunt “so bold to the point of ridiculousness.”
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Christopher Nolan said that he and his crew blew up a real Boeing 747 for “Tenet” because it was “more efficient” than practical effects using miniatures or CGI.
In an interview with Total Film magazine, director Nolan said: “I planned to do it using miniatures and set-piece builds and a combination of visual effects and all the rest. However, while scouting for locations in Victorville, California, the team discovered a massive array of old planes.”
“We started to run the numbers … It became apparent that it would actually be more efficient to buy a real plane of the real size, and perform this sequence for real in camera, rather than build miniatures or go the CG route.”
Nolan added: “It’s a strange thing to talk about – a kind of impulse buying, I suppose. But we kind of did, and it worked very well, with Scott Fisher, our special-effects supervisor, and Nathan Crowley, the production designer, figuring out how to pull off this big sequence in camera. It was a very exciting thing to be a part of.”
For the same interview, Robert Pattinson, whose character discusses crashing the plane in the trailer, also chimed in: “You wouldn’t have thought there was any reality where you would be doing a scene where they just have an actual 747 to blow up!”
“It’s so bold to the point of ridiculousness… I remember, as we were shooting it, I was thinking, ‘How many more times is this even going to be happening in a film at all?'”
Pattinson also commented on the film’s spectacle in an interview with GQ. Pattinson said that the 500-strong crew would travel to different countries together to film segments of the movie, “And in each country, there’s, like, an enormous set-piece scene, which is like the climax of a normal movie. In every single country.”
“Tenet,” which has a budget of $205 million, is Nolan’s second most expensive movie to date after “The Dark Knight Rises,” and the film’s trailer shows off some of those spectacular set-pieces in style. The movie is due to be released on July 17 at the time of writing, although that release date could change due to the coronavirus crisis.
Read more:
Every single Christopher Nolan movie, ranked by critics