10 Things You Didn’t Know About Olympus Has Fallen
There are very few films in the past decade not named John Wick to generate a sequel, let alone, multiple ones. While the Mike Banning name isn’t as popular and the franchise doesn’t carry as much box office weight, the Olympus movies have proven that original action ideas do exist and can be profitable.
Now, let’s take a look at a few things about the one that started that franchise off to such a hot start. Here are 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Olympus Has Fallen.
1- Don’t talk to me: Aaron Eckhart and Rick Yune kept their relationship as adversarial as possible, both on and off the set. They didn’t want to become close friends when they were supposed to be fighting for the entire movie. Both actors felt it made their performances better.
2- Advisors: They spoke with specialists who were familiar with the security procedures at the White House and that is how they came up with the strategy for the attack. Many of the things you see in the film wouldn’t actually work (getting that C-130 that close…no way) but a quick, sudden attack by a smaller force with heavy weaponry was the best they could come up with.
3- The replica: They did an inch by inch replica of the White House for filming. The entire first floor was recreated for shooting down in Louisiana. The entire top of the building and everything around it was done with CGI so they could add in the effects of explosions and everything else that happened to the place.
4- Black hawk down: Most of the blackhawk sequence was done using special effects. They had a cab mock-up of a chopper so they could film actors inside it and did the rest of the scenes using CGI. In fact, all of the aerial scenes are done using CGI. They couldn’t film that close to the White House in the sky and no one is going to give that sort of money for the fighter jets so all of the scenes are rendered.
5- Operator KW: Keith Woulard, Navy SEAL, was brought in to coordinate on the film’s action scenes. He would go over to Butler’s house on the weekends they didn’t film to go over the fight scenes with Gerard and the stunt coordinator.
6- Fuq yeah: Director Antoine Fuqua always wanted to fly planes as a kid so we get to see jets and planes in most of his movies. He got to fly in a C-130 for Tears of the Sun. It’s a modified C-130 that attacks the White House in this one.
7- Times they are a-changing’: The film went through some changes before shooting began. One big change that Fuqua brought was a change in tone. He really instilled a sense of realism in a lot of the action. The script lacked a certain credibility to the action and Antoine and Gerard got together and made his mark on it.
8- Almost American Assassin: Gerard Butler was close to playing Mitch Rapp, a character from the Vince Flynn novels and one that was soon to be featured in the film American Assassin.
9- The attackers: At one point, the entire South Korean delegation that goes into the vault with the politician were going to be terrorists. They would eventually decide against it as it was a bit far fetched that such a large group of defectors would make it into positions where they would be protecting the South Korean delegate.
10- The cast: The excellent cast including Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Melissa Leo, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser, Ashley Judd, Dylan McDermott, and Rick Yune just kind of came together. Gerard Butler was on board as a producer and he got Eckhart involved, but once Morgan Freeman and Antoine Fuqua signed on the rest of them jumped at it. Some of the actors only spent a few days on set but there is something to seeing recognizable faces in nearly every role that adds a legitimacy to the film.
