Matrix Reloaded Filming Wants to Shut Sydney Down

ro_len writes "News.com.au is reporting the producers of the Matrix Realoaded are looking to shut down Sydney for the filming of the final scene which involves flying a helicopter across the city at less than 600 feet above ground. It is supposed to be the most complicated sequence ever filmed." Just plain nuts. Here is a previous story about the trailer, and another one announcing the film.

They did this in times square for vanilla sky.

[Anonymous Coward]

If they can clear NYC Times Square they can clear anything.

FX

[xonos]

isn't that what special effects, green screens and CGIs are for? i would be so pissed if the closed down philladelphia for two days, so some hollywood producer can make some money.

Renting the city?

[chobee]

How about making the film makers pay all the taxes for those two weekends? Since citizens won't have full use of the city why should they pay taxes?

What I did for summer vacation

[ObviousGuy]

Isn't that what movie sets are for? Can't they rebuild a replica of the city they want on some backlot?

Not so rare

[YanceyAI]

It's common practice for parts of Los Angeles to be closed for movie making, even if the sequence is not that dangerous. When I lived there, there were several times I was unable to get to work or park once I arrived. At least once that I can remember, they shut down all of downtown. It is extremely annoying to have your life interupted for the sake of entertainment. I might have been more forgiving, though, had they been working on the Matrix!

Re:Stupid if you ask me.

[Anonymous Coward]

CGI still doesn't pull off a truely realistic feel.

It seems like the _look_ of CGI can approach real life but the physics gives everything away. I have never, ever, seen any CGI effects that have 100% convincing physics.

Of course one could argue that maybe I've seen something that was CGI but thought it was real.

most complicated != best stunt

[f00zbll]

like the matrix and watched a dozen times, but shutting down a whole city does seem a bit extreme. It's good they are thinking about people's safety and also secrecy, but is it really necessary.

I just hope the W brothers don't kill themselves in the process of trying to "out do" the original matrix. The two of them have already spent quite a few years to this effort. It's always tough when a director makes a really successful movie, because the expectation are set unrealitically high. If they manage to pull it off, they may become hollywood heavy weights. If they flop, it's going to be a costly blunder.

Not the first time

[Anonymous Coward]

In the beginning of the film Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise, he runs around an empty Times Square. Word has it that Hollywood paid $3 million to shut down the most active city in the world for a few early morning hours.

Can get the figures to balance

[Rogerborg]

• [Lord Mayor Frank Sartor] said under the council's Living City policy, the city cannot be empty on weekends, or business owners prevented from trading.

... unless sufficient amounts of cash are provided? Principles aside though, I simply can't see how paying a realistic amount to compensate each and every business and individual displaced by this activity could work out as less than doing a kick ass CGI version of it.

Unless of course Sydney is working on the "First one is free" principle (or second one in this case), to make themselves look like a great (i.e. cheap, compliant) location for foreign film companies. Fair enough, but I'm kind of picturing how we might respond if (e.g.) a Bollywood [planetbollywood.com] company thought it could just breeze in and pay to have most of Detroit forcibly evacuated. "Get lost," springs to mind, along with stronger objections and possible a slew of litigation against the City.

As I said, it's up to Sydney if they want to turn themselves into a giant movie location, but I'd be surprised if it does their reputation as a business location any good.

shutdowns

[jhughes]

Hollywood does some strange things for movies. The movie Field of Dreams was filmed in my hometown of Dubuque Iowa, and the field is but 26 miles away.For teh final scene fo the movie they wanted to have a line of cars, at night with lights on, stretching as far as possible. So, for a few hours, they had shutdown a rural road (not a big deal), half of one highway and half of another highway.

All for a snaking line of cars at dusk with headlights on.
Tell me computers couldn't have done that:)

Publicity Stunt

[parad0x01]

This is definetly a publicity stunt. The entire city of New york was CG'ed for Spiderman.

Re:cities as publicity stunts

[Bonker]

Funny, I thought that cities were for living in and business, etc, etc, not for rich-ass movie companies to play with.

You've just got no clue why cities want movies to be filmed in their jurisdictions

Think about the budget for big-time blockbusters like Matrix 2 and 3, both of which are being filmed in and around Sydney. Together, they probably total around 300-500 million dollars. Much of that money will be spent on production. A significant portion of that money is spent on things adjacent to the filming process, like catering, for example.

There are restaurants in Sydney that will be made for life with the massive amounts of catering required by such a huge production. Even if Carrie Ann Moss isn't allowed to have more than a celery stick for every meal so that she still looks good in skin-tight latex as Trinity, you can bet that Bubba the gaffer and Hank the electrician want steak and potatos for every meal. Both the Wachowski brothers are big guys. I bet they don't skimp on the catering either.

Also, since the actors have been in Sydney for about a year, do you think they're living in trailers? Probably they're living in fancy hotel aparments for thousands of dollars a month.

Money makes it worth it.

It's not a control issue

[Myriad]

I regularly fly around at 200 feet during the course of my job. 600ft is pretty high really, and certainly high enough for an above-average helicopter pilot to maintain control while flying down a wide city street.

For a project I was working on I wanted to do some shooting over Toronto at a height that would have worked out to around 400ft. They wouldn't let me.

The problem, as I discovered, is not an issue of whether it is safe to pilot at that altitude, but should some malfunction or other problem cause an emergency (or crash) landing. Legally (in Toronto anyway) the pilot must fly at a minimum of 1000ft in order to have enough altitude that (s)he can move the helicopter away from densely populated areas in the case of an emergency - rather than arbitrarily falling on top of whatever is directly below.

Now, in the case of a Sea King (the helicopter of "choice" for the Canadian Navy) I wouldn't want one flying at *any* altitude over a populated region. Something about 30,000 parts flying in formation that makes me nervous.

Godzilla

[Joao]

I remember when they were filming Godzilla here in NYC. I was trying to get to work, and they had closed off 23rd street to shoot one of those "tons-O-fish falling from the sky" scenes. There were a bunch of us standing there for several minutes on rush hour, trying to get to work or school, and the one security guy holding us back. Then one guy decided to just keep going, and the whole crowd just marched ahead while the security guy kept trying to hold people back.

I wonder how many security guards they're gonna need to hold back a city's entire population.

Remember Vic Morrow

[Anonymous Coward]

I shudder everytime I hear about "the most complicated special effect" involving a low flying helicopter.