When you’ve got high-priced talent like Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy on the payroll, nobody’s going to risk the actors’ lives or limbs for the sake of an awesome stunt. That said, superhero-assassin movie Wanted pushed its stars pretty hard to sell the car chases, train wrecks and gunfights that drive the action.
Working with his own special effects company based in Moscow, Russian director Timur Bekmambetov and his team relied on both physical derring-do and digital trickery to create some high-octane moments in the thrill-packed flick. (Read Wired.com’s Wanted review.)
Here’s how they pulled off the adrenaline-pumping stunts.
(Spoiler alert: Plot information follows).
Taking Chicago’s "L" Train to the Limit
Riding the rails in Chicago, Wesley Gibson (played by McAvoy) and Fox (Jolie) sprint over the roofs of the city’s elevated trains. Wesley avoids decapitation by leaping above an oncoming tunnel and landing on the other side when the train emerges.
To achieve the effect, several full-size "L" trains were constructed as stationary units on a green-screen stage. In a studio briefing, Bekmambetov explained: "The train was too big to move, so we moved the bridge instead!" Special effects supervisor Dominic Tuohy elaborated: "We moved the bridge with computerized winches. We knew exactly where it was and at what speed it was traveling. That gave confidence to the artists doing their own stunts — 3 meters up in the air — by ensuring that each take would be the same, repetitive move."
High-Speed Train Crash
Fox chases high-speed Pendolino train (above) in Europe a few minutes before it plummets into a gorge (see embedded trailer).
The hellacious train wreck, staged in a fantastically beautiful setting, looks unbelievably real.
To pull off the stunning scene, the Pendolino car was constructed on a gimbal equipped with hydraulics that rotated 360 degrees and tilted at a 32-degree angle.
"When the train derails itself, our train carriage tilts and rolls to simulate a crash," Tuohy explains.
"Rolling around inside were all of the stunt crew as well as our actors, who did every scene themselves. It’s far more interesting when you actually have real people trapped behind chairs or getting flung around. Our actors said they felt like they were in a tumble dryer."
Digital Stunt Doubles
For especially high-risk sequences, Bekmambetov augmented his flesh-and-blood performers with scanned digital stunt doubles. The scanner rotates around the actors for about 15 seconds to create 3-D models. Downloaded to a computer as a CG mold, the virtual models were then "rigged" with skeletal and muscular systems, layered with textured exteriors, fitted with scanned wardrobes and programmed to move like the actors.
Crazy Car Chases
To execute Wanted‘s first big car chase scene, when Fox hurtles across town in a red Viper shortly after snatching up the hapless Wesley, Jolie was rigged in a harness strapped to the side of the sports car going 30 mph. Stunt coordinator Mic Rodgers says: "The camera platform was on the back of the Viper and we chased it with the camera bike. Angelina as Fox did a head-on, near miss with an oncoming car, which throws her off to the driver’s side of the Viper."
Tattoos
In one of the movie’s goofier elements, the so-called Loom of Fate weaves information into the warp and woof of cloth fabrics embedded with binary code that spells out the assassins’ next assignments.
The tattoos on Jolie’s body (right) relate directly to the movie’s "loom" mythology, the actress said.
"Fox has binary codes on her arm, which is part of a reading of the fabric from the Loom of Fate," said Jolie. "She has ‘know your rights’ in different languages and ‘toil and tears,’ which is from a Churchill speech. Giving Fox all these tattoos is symbolic of somebody who lives by a certain code of honor."
Photos courtesy Universal Pictures
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