Memorable Movies
SKYFALL
• Skyfall was the most financially successful of any James Bond movie in history. It had the biggest opening weekend of any previous James Bond film, and pulled in over $1 billion worldwide over the course of its run.
• The opening scene, involving a motorcycle chase across rooftops, took place in Turkey. It took 4 months of planning, 200 crew members, 3 months of rehearsal, and 2 months of filming just to complete the first 12 minutes of the movie.
• The scene required the use of 20 cameramen on motorcycles, chasing the action while James Bond is being pursued by henchman Patrice, while both are riding Honda CRF250R motorbikes.
• The wardrobe department used 85 identical suits to outfit Daniel Craig, his double, and stunt double in the opening scene. No matter what happens to Bond during this big chase scene, his suit is always impeccably unwrinkled and utterly without dust or scuffs. They gave him a weighted tie so it wouldn’t flap in the breeze as he zoomed away on his motorcycle.
• The cast went through 200,000 rounds of ammo just while practicing for the opening scene.
• Skyfall was the first James Bond film where the “f word” can be heard, spoken by Judi Dench in her role as the character M.
• This was the first movie where James Bond wore a gray suit. Previously, he only wore black.
• The film contains 500 CGI shots. They needed to employ over 1,000 people across the world to work on the computer-generated scenes. (cont)
• “Skyfall” was the first Bond film to be released in IMAX.
• It has more product placements than any other James Bond film.
• Skyfall Lodge in Scotland is not a real building, just an exterior set made of plywood and plaster. It wasn’t even located in Scotland, but was filmed in Surrey, England.
• Naomie Harris in her role as Miss Moneypenny gave James Bond a very sensual shave using a straight razor. She spent six weeks with a professional barber training for the shaving scene, practicing her technique on members of the crew along the way. Sales of straight razors increased by over 400% after the movie opened.
• One scene was almost ruined by a pair of gloves Daniel Craig purchased, thinking they looked very Bond-like. With the director’s approval, he wore them for an extremely expensive and difficult action scene where he falls into a pit filled with Komodo dragons. The villain gets Bond’s gun, but it doesn’t fire because it’s equipped with fingerprint-sensing technology that makes it impossible for anyone other than Bond to shoot.
• After the scene was shot, an editorial assistant piped up and said, “Wait a minute. The logic here is that the villain can’t fire Bond’s gun because it has a fingerprint scanner, but if that’s the case, then how was Bond ever going to fire it wearing gloves?”
• They determined that re-shooting the scene without gloves would cost millions of dollars that simply wasn’t in the budget. They wound up digitally coloring the gloves the same color as Craig’s skin pigment, but his hands still look pudgy in the final cut.
• The film won 5 Oscars in 2013, more than any other James Bond film in history.
