Instead of tinkering with CGI or scaling down to toy planes, Christopher Nolan went full throttle and crashed a real Boeing 747. Because apparently, blowing up a 230-ton jet is just another Tuesday in Nolan-world.
Turns out, buying and wrecking a plane was actually cheaper than faking it. Nolan broke it down, explaining, “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.”
A place in California had planes lying around (as one does), so Christopher pulled the ultimate “add to cart” move. Cue Scott Fisher (special effects guru) and Nathan Crowley (production design wizard), who figured out how to make a plane-smashing scene work in real life. The result? A hangar-shaking spectacle that even Nolan called “a very exciting thing to be a part of.”
Robert Pattinson, who starred in Tenet, still couldn’t wrap his head around it. “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!” he shared. “It’s so bold to the point of ridiculousness.”
Imagine showing up to work and casually watching a 747 get totalled for a movie scene. Ridiculous? Sure. Iconic? Absolutely.
Nolan isn’t exactly new to jaw-dropping practical effects. He gave us the rotating hallway in Inception and sent an actual IMAX camera into space for Interstellar. And The Dark Knight? He flipped a whole truck on a city street because why not. But smashing a real plane for Tenet? That’s a flex even by his standards.
If you thought Nolan peaked with the 747, think again. While filming Oppenheimer, he recreated the first-ever nuclear explosion – no CGI, no green screens, just pure Nolan insanity. As he put it, “Recreating the Trinity test without the use of computer graphics was a huge challenge.”
Apparently, blowing stuff up the old-fashioned way is a vibe for him.
So, what’s the takeaway? Christopher Nolan doesn’t just make movies; he makes events. Whether he’s crashing planes, flipping trucks, or simulating nuclear blasts, he’s rewriting the playbook for blockbuster filmmaking.
And let’s face it: when the man says, “Let’s crash a Boeing 747,” you just grab popcorn and watch the magic happen.
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