Christopher Nolan Blew Up a Real 747 Plane For His New Movie 'Tenet' Because It Was 'More Efficient' Than CGI
Christopher Nolan's 'Tenet' is set to become the first summer blockbuster released during this bizarro world 2020. I've watched the trailer dozens of times and genuinely have no clue what's going on. We're doing some sort of time travel it looks like trying to stop a major event from happening. Who the fuck knows, but I'm in though. I'll watch anything Nolan has his name attached to. The guy doesn't miss. He's calling this one his most ambitious movie yet? Say no more, I'm watching. I've read a rumor that the plot is about going back in time to stop 9/11. That would be wild, but again it's just a rumor.
There's a clip that recently surfaced where a 747 plane is seen crashing into a hanger and exploding.
You would think that is all CGI and nothing else. Nope, turns out Nolan crunched the numbers and saw it'd be cheaper to go to the plane store, buy a real life 747, and crash that baby into the hanger for the movie. Either that or he lied to the budget people and went ahead because it was fucking awesome to do it live.
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Despite the risky timing, Nolan is currently promoting the movie by revealing that a major stunt involving the destruction of a 747 in an airport hanger was done with practical effects rather than CGI. In other words, he really destroyed a plane.
“We started to run the numbers… It became apparent that it would actually be moe 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,” he said. -Source
THAT IS AWESOME. The balls you've got to have to use a real plane for a crazy scene like that where you pretty much have one shot to nail it or you cost production millions. That's an adrenaline rush if I've ever heard of one. Everyone on set had to be on pins and needles that day. You DO NOT want to be the guy that fucks up destroying a multi million dollar plane that I can tell you.
I love how Nolan describes buying the plane like he's late night shopping on Amazon. Classic impulse buy. We've all been there.
“It’s a strange thing to talk about – a kind of impulse buying, I suppose,” adds Nolan. “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.”
He's opted for real things over CGI before. For Interstellar he planted 500 acres of corn because he didn't want to CGI a farm into the movie. What a preposterous move.
After the movie he sold all of the corn and made a profit. Legend.
July 17th. Tenet. Don't know what's going to happen at all, but I can't wait.