The Green Hornet 3D The Movie in Zaria,

• Info
• Cast & Crew

• Genre: Action,Adventure
  
  Synopsis:
  The heir (Seth Rogen) to a newspaper fortune joins forces with a resourceful company employee (Jay Chou) to bring a powerful Los Angeles crime lord to justice.
  
  Release Date: 01/14/2011
  Running Time: 119
  
  Rating: PG-13 - Parents Strongly Cautioned
  
  http://www.greenhornetmovie.com/
  
• Cast:
  Britt Reid/Green Hornet: Seth Rogen,Kato: Jay Chou,Lenore Case: Cameron Diaz,James Reid: Tom Wilkinson,Chudnofsky: Christoph Waltz,Scanlon: David Harbour,Axford: Edward James Olmos,Popeye: Jamie Harris,Chili: Chad Coleman,Tupper: Edward Furlong,Young Britt: Joshua Erenberg Chandler,Ana Lee: Analeigh Tipton,Daily Sentinel Reporter: Jill Remez,Daily Sentinel Reporter: Joe O'Connor,Daily Sentinel Reporter: Morgan Rusler
  
  Crew:
  Director: Michel Gondry,Screenwriter: Seth Rogen,Screenwriter: Evan Goldberg,Producer: Neal H. Moritz,Executive Producer: Michael Grillo,Executive Producer: Seth Rogen,Executive Producer: Evan Goldberg,Executive Producer: Ori Marmur,Executive Producer: George Trendle W.,Cinematographer: John Schwartzman,Production Design: Owen Paterson,Costume Designer: Kym Barrett,Film Editor: Michael Tronick,Original Music: James Howard Newton,Casting: Francine Maisler,Supervising Art Direction: Greg Papalia,Art Director: Chad Frey S.,Art Director: Randy Moore,Art Director: Benjamin Edelberg,Set Decoration: Ronald Reiss R.
  
  Production Companies:
  Original Film
  
  Distributors:
  Sony Pictures Entertainment
  
  Notes:
  Production Notes - Notes provided by Sony Pictures - In Michel Gondry's exciting new 3D action comedy The Green Hornet, Britt Reid (Seth Rogen) is the son of LA's most prominent and respected media magnate and perfectly happy to maintain a directionless existence on the party scene - until his father (Tom Wilkinson) mysteriously dies, leaving Britt his vast media empire. Striking an unlikely friendship with one of his father's more industrious and inventive employees, Kato (Jay Chou), they see their chance to do something meaningful for the first time in their lives: fight crime. To get close to the criminals, they come up with the perfect cover: they'll pose as criminals themselves. Protecting the law by breaking it, Britt becomes the vigilante The Green Hornet as he and Kato hit the streets. Using all his ingenuity and skill, Kato builds the ultimate in advanced retro weaponry, The Black Beauty, an indestructible car equal parts firepower and horsepower. Rolling in a mobile fortress on wheels and striking the bad guys with Kato's clever gadgets, The Green Hornet and Kato quickly start making a name for themselves, and with the help of Britt's new secretary, Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz), they begin hunting down the man who controls LA's gritty underworld: Benjamin Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz). But Chudnofsky has plans of his own: to swat down The Green Hornet once and for all. Columbia Pictures presents an Original Film production, a film by Michel Gondry, The Green Hornet. The film stars Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, and Cameron Diaz, Christoph Waltz, Edward James Olmos, David Harbour, and Tom Wilkinson. Directed by Michel Gondry. Produced by Neal H. Moritz. Written by Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg. Based upon ``The Green Hornet radio series created by George W. Trendle. Executive producers are Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Michael Grillo, Ori Marmur, and George W. Trendle, Jr. Director of Photography is John Schwartzman, ASC. Production Designer is Owen Paterson. Editor is Michael Tronick, A.C.E. Visual Effects Supervisor is Jamie Dixon. Costume Designer is Kym Barrett. Music by James Newton Howard. Credits not final and subject to change. The Green Hornet has been rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for sequences of violent action, language, sensuality and drug content. The film will be released in theaters nationwide on January 14, 2011. ABOUT THE FILM ``As a kid, I really, really loved The Green Hornet, says producer Neal H. Moritz. ``I loved the fact that Bruce Lee played Kato and I loved Van Williams as Britt Reid. They were wish fulfillment shows for me. I had always been jealous that somebody else was going to get to make The Green Hornet into a movie. Born in the 1930s as a radio serial, The Green Hornet garnered many fans in all media - not only on radio, but in film serials, comic books, and, for one season in the 1960s, a television series that catapulted Bruce Lee to stardom in the U.S. With the new film, The Green Hornet makes his feature film debut and introduces the masked avenger to a new generation of fans. The film is directed by Michel Gondry. As the filmmakers shepherded the project, there were a number of directors who expressed interest in the project, but when the chance to work with someone like Gondry comes along, you jump at the chance. And they were thrilled that even with Gondry's well-earned rep for mind-bending films, it was clear that the movie he wanted to make was the Gondry spin on the project Moritz, Rogen, and Goldberg had envisioned all along. ``We couldn't be more fortuitous to have someone with Michel's creative ingenuity, says Moritz. ``At the beginning, I was really excited about the possibility that Michel was interested - I'm a huge fan and we've been friends for many years - but this would be a tentpole action-comedy. Was that what he wanted to do? Was it too outside his wheelhouse? And Michel saw a way to take the framework of this big Hollywood movie and bring his original voice, look, and sound - so yes, it's an event title, but it's also a Michel Gondry movie. Gondry says, ``I've had the opportunity to do a movie in this genre before, but they always had a slick attitude - the one guy saving the world - and I don't identify with that guy. I like to have people portrayed on the screen that have flaws, a sense of humor, maybe a bit of a loser at times. That's what was appealing about this movie. ``There's danger in having a 'shtick,' Gondry continues. ``Of course, there are sequences that will have my specific signature, but no one wants to repeat their past work. I want to make movies that combine technical filmmaking with real acting. This is big action-comedy, and clearly there are a lot of effects, but because we captured so many of those effects in-camera. The actors could act and be funny, and the result is a great performance. ``Britt Reid is famous for being the son of someone who did something great, but he's just a dude who parties, says Seth Rogen, describing his character. Rogen also wrote the screenplay with his partner, Evan Goldberg. ``He's never once done anything meaningful in his life. But when his father dies, he sees he has the opportunity to do something that gives his life purpose and direction - he decides he's going to use his inheritance as a force for good. The Green Hornet is presented in 3D, a decision that fits perfectly into the story that Gondry is telling, including the way he filmed it. ``Michel is a revolutionary, Moritz says. ``You know, he's the guy who invented 'Matrix time' - he did it in a Smirnoff commercial years before they used the same technique in The Matrix. Michel uses every tool, every trick of the camera, CGI, everything, to tell the story. And 3D is just another innovative tool that allows filmmakers to tell their stories in a new way. So of course Michel was interested in releasing the movie in 3D, and using the depth and scope of the film in this dramatic new way. Grant Anderson and Rob Engle were the supervising stereographers charged with adapting Michel's vision for 3D presentation. According to Engle, the fact that much of the movie was shot in 2D and then enhanced with 3D allowed Gondry more control over the final image - and as a result truly allowed him to play with the 3D space in his unique Gondry way. ``What conversion allows us to do is to manipulate the three-dimensional space in a way that you can't do with traditional photography, says Engle. ``Shooting in 3D, what you see is what you get. But the way we did it, it actually opens up the door to using 3D in a creative way and manipulating 3D in unexpected ways. I think that's what really excites Michel. For example, in certain places, he's taking elements of one shot, and at the cut, he will carry over elements - bits of glass or a weapon - to the next shot. In that way, there's a sense of continuity of 3D space that you wouldn't have naturally with 3D photography. What is more, the final decision to release the film in 3D came shortly after completion of principal photography, giving Gondry the ability to design many of the effects sequences with 3D in mind. ``Michel is a visionary, says Engle. ``He's constantly coming up with unique and creative ways to use the film medium. I think 3D adds a new and exciting weapon to his filmmaking arsenal. In fact, Gondry prepared an early presentation when he first met with Moritz, Rogen, and Goldberg: his vision for the film's action sequences, which he calls Kato-Vision. ``Michel brought in something that he had made at home, which basically showed a fight scene between two guys, and it was one of the things that got us really excited about doing the movie with him, says Moritz. ``Within the same frame, you saw two people fighting at different speeds. Michel is a guy who knows how to revolutionize what you see on film. Rogen puts it succinctly: ``When I go to see a movie, I want to see something I've never seen before - and if there's a dude who's come up with a lot of stuff I've never seen before, it's Gondry. With Gondry's captivating visual style, Moritz's experience with action films, and Rogen and Goldberg's success with comedy, the film had ``a triad of people from very different worlds, says Moritz. ``When I'd see the kind of work the others were doing - Michel's creativity, Seth and Evan's work with the screenplay - it inspired me to bring my A game, too. Since I'd been a fan for such a long time, it was great to know that I was involved with people who shared a passion for the material - Michel, obviously, and Seth and Evan, who have a deep love for the genre. Indeed, any major feature film requires a high level of collaboration to pull it off, but The Green Hornet is an especially good example. Cameron Diaz explains, ``It's really a great partnership and a lot of fun working with them. You'll be on set and Michel comes in and gives the direction. Then Seth and Evan hear that and talk to Michel about a new line of dialogue. All of a sudden there's this synergistic thing that happens - the set is a blender, all these ingredients are being poured in, you push a button, and out comes the perfect piña colada. For their part, Rogen and Goldberg ``were looking for a new movie to write, explains Rogen. ``We had always been comic book fans, superhero fans. For a long time we had been trying to write a movie about a hero and his sidekick. But nothing was quite right for us until we looked at the Green Hornet. Here was this famous character with a real legacy, but still a property that would allow us to put our own interpretation into the characters. It was like this project was tailor made for what Evan and I wanted to do - we could explore the relationship between Britt and Kato around the framework of this kickass action-comedy. It was perfect. Perfect, Rogen says, because from their point of view, over time, the characters have become true equals. ``Kato started out as a sidekick role, and like a lot of sidekicks, he was just a sidekick. But then came the TV show, with Bruce Lee as Kato. He became an icon, and because of that, there's a great love out there for the sidekick as well as the Green Hornet himself. People who come to see the movie want to see what happens to Kato, not just 'the hero' the Green Hornet. If Gondry brought his vision, and Rogen and Golberg brought the comedy and story sensibilities, it was Moritz who brought a deep experience with action films. ``Neal has an extremely detailed perception of what works and doesn't work in terms of action on screen, says Gondry. ``He really has a sense for it, how to frame a shot, how many frames to cut in the editing room. Rounding out the crime-fighting trio is, of course, the Green Hornet's car, Black Beauty. ``As far as I'm concerned, says Moritz, ``Black Beauty is the real superhero of the movie. After much development with car manufacturers and designers, the filmmakers finally decided that only the Chrysler Imperial Crown - the same model used in the television series - would do. ``Every time we compared the new designs to the classic Chrysler, they never lived up, says Moritz. ``I think it was Michel who said, 'Why don't we build off of the Imperial?' A light bulb went on. We're never going to come up with anything cooler than that. CASTING THE FILM ``As we started to develop the script, I couldn't think of a better person to play the title role, says Moritz of the choice to cast Rogen as the Green Hornet. ``To believe that Britt Reid becomes The Green Hornet, you have to believe the character he is at the beginning, and no one could play that better than Seth. ``The whole story of the movie is that Britt is an irresponsible idiot who's trying to get his life together to do something worthwhile, says Rogen. ``As an irresponsible idiot, I'm quite good. With the Green Hornet himself cast, the filmmakers turned to casting Kato. For that pivotal role, they turned to Asian pop star Jay Chou. ``We truly did an around the world search for who could be Kato, says Moritz. Chou is one of Asia's biggest stars - the King of Asian Pop, according to Time Magazine. He's sold over 32 million albums and has had Asia's top-selling album for 10 years running. Some Americans may not know his name yet, but they will - to Asian-Americans, he is an enormous star, capable of selling out a 100,000-seat venue like the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. After an initial audition over Skype, the studio flew Chou in from Taiwan and were immediately struck. ``There was something about the chemistry between Seth and Jay that reminded me of the classic buddy movie pairings, says Moritz. ``He has a star quality when he's on screen that makes you think, 'I want to watch this guy.' ``It was immediately clear that he was super cool, says Rogen. ``He's really charismatic, he's handsome, he has that cool hair. He'd never take orders from a guy like Britt Reid. That made him perfect for the part. ``The Green Hornet is 'the hero,' but it's Kato who does everything, says Gondry. ``That's a great twist on the hero-sidekick thing - the sidekick is the real hero, but he gets no credit. Chou feels that the team is ``balanced, he says. ``They are from different backgrounds, but they are like brothers. Britt is the funny one, Kato is a little bit more serious. Of course, Chou was intrigued by playing a role that not only Bruce Lee made famous, but was the role that made Lee a star. In Lee's performance, Chou says, Lee ``filled the little gaps with coolness, which was exactly what the character needed. His performance was about attitude. But Gondry says that while Chou may have been inspired to bring his own attitude to the role, Chou also makes the part his own. ``I'm sure it was difficult for him; the legacy and aura of Bruce Lee is gigantic. So his approach was not to do any imitation of Bruce Lee at all. It became pretty clear that he was very, very cool in a very different way. He had Kato's confidence, every step of the way. ``He completely pulled off everything that we thought he could do, but more so, because he was even cooler than we thought he could be, says Rogen. ``We're not cool, so we weren't prepared for how cool he could be. Lenore Case was another character that carried over into the film - in a slightly different incarnation. Cameron Diaz brought the updated character of Britt Reid's secretary to life. ``I was in New York and got a call that Seth Rogen and Michel Gondry were doing The Green Hornet. Those two names separately were incredibly interesting to me. But hearing those names together? It made the project completely irresistible. When I thought of those two minds together, I didn't care what it was. I just had to be a part of it. In the 1930s, Lenore Case was a woman ahead of her times. In 2011, Lenore is a woman of her times. ``She's smarter than both Britt and Kato put together, laughs Diaz. ``They have no idea what they're doing, whether it's running a newspaper or being vigilante crime-fighters. Lenore is passionate about journalism and she's obsessed with criminology and forensics. ``The only thing Lenore doesn't know is that she's the brains of the Green Hornet operation, says Moritz. ``She's doing the research for Britt and Kato, feeding them information. She thinks it's because Britt needs to know all of this for the newspaper, but in reality they're using her research to go out there and be the Green Hornet and Kato. Moritz says, ``We were so lucky to have Cameron play Lenore. She's obviously known for her comedy. It was easy for us to have scenes between the three of them that were not only endearing and emotional but really funny as well. To play the Green Hornet's nemesis, Chudnofsky, the filmmakers brought in Christoph Waltz, who had astonished everyone with his performance as Col. Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds, a role which garnered the actor an Academy Award(R). The film was released the same week that The Green Hornet started production, and the idea of getting Waltz brought a palpable excitement to the set. According to Waltz, from Chudnofsky's point of view, Britt Reid's plan of posing as criminals to get close to the real bad guys totally works. ``He's obsessed with the Green Hornet, because he sees the Green Hornet disturbing his business. He thinks it's a competing criminal. Britt's plan works perfectly. Waltz had a particularly challenging role, according to Rogen. ``We told him, 'You're going to need to scare people - you might kill someone - and you need to make them laugh at the same time,' says Rogen. ``And he totally did it. When I look at what he does in the movie, I can't think of anyone else who could be that scary and that funny. ``When I talked to Neal about the part, he said, 'This is a bad guy in his midlife crisis,' says Waltz. ``Now that I thought was really funny. He's a very sensitive and hurt human being, an intellectual who takes great pride in his appearance, very, very prudent, and has a certain way of dealing with people that involves a gun with two barrels. Adds Moritz, ``I couldn't be more proud to have Christoph in this movie. He's a terrific actor and every time you see him on screen, he's bigger than life. Waltz says that the key to playing a villain is finding the elements that make him a human being. ``Chudnofsky is just a guy trying to get along in the world, he says. ``It's always interesting to find the human qualities in any character. Why should a villain be an exception? The Academy Award(R) nominated actor Tom Wilkinson plays James Reid - a small but essential role, as Britt's relationship with his father is the inspiration for his transformation into The Green Hornet. Having raised his son on his own while building his empire, James Reid was disappointed by his son's choices. Says Wilkinson, ``He's very frustrated by the fact that having lavished everything on his son, Britt seems to be living a terribly desolate lifestyle of which his father wholly disapproves. Father-son relationships can be fraught and James and Britt Reid typically suffer from a lack of true communication. ``However frustrated you are with your dopey kids, explains Wilkinson, ``you love them. You love them more than life itself. After his father's death and Britt's first outing as a vigilante crime-fighter, Britt sees a way his father's newspaper, The Daily Sentinel, can build The Green Hornet's notoriety. James Reid's longtime right-hand man, Mike Axford, played by Edward James Olmos, suddenly has to make room for the new kid in the boardroom - a kid he knows only as a party kid and slacker, a kid who knows nothing of news, newspapers or business. Axford doesn't know what to make of Britt and feels a strong responsibility to protect what he built with Britt's father. For Olmos, the tentative, complicated, even strained relationship between Britt and Axford made the part compelling. ``My character's got a really dark side to him, which I thought really played well, he says. ``Michel, Neal, and Seth allowed me to create the character and infuse my ideas into my character. David Harbour, a Tony-nominated actor who previously took on key roles in Revolutionary Road and the James Bond film Quantum of Solace, rounds out the cast as Scanlon, the District Attorney. ABOUT BLACK BEAUTY ``As far as I'm concerned, says producer Neal H. Moritz, ``the Black Beauty is the third of the threesome. She is the superhero of the movie. Just like the rest of the characters in The Green Hornet, the Black Beauty had to be cast. In the casting process, several cars auditioned, and the filmmakers were not sentimental during the process. ``We really looked at making a lot of different cars, Moritz goes on. ``We had different manufacturers who wanted to build a new Black Beauty, and we considered many different cars. ``We didn't want it to be too futuristic, says Gondry. ``There was very little CG that would work for the car. We wanted it to feel real - a real car, with a real solid engine. When at last the Imperial was suggested and agreed upon, it seemed like the natural choice. ``The Imperial was definitely my preference from the beginning when I first got on the project, says picture car captain Dennis McCarthy, who had worked with Moritz on the Fast and Furious films. ``And once it was suggested, we did a quick show-and-tell for Neal, Michel, and Seth, and that pretty much sold it right there. Of course, in its time, the Chrysler Imperial was the top of the line, but some 40 years have passed. During the run of the television series, the Black Beauty had custom details, including shaved-off bumpers and chrome. ``We went for a little more classic look, says McCarthy. ``We left the chrome bumpers on the car, we left the chrome trim. It's still a classic Imperial, but it has the theme of the original. Of course, working with a car that has been out of production for nearly fifty years can be quite a challenge - especially a car that is fully loaded with innovations and inventions that show off Kato's bold imagination. ``We definitely brought the weaponry up to date, enthuses McCarthy. ``We've got cool stuff, no comparison. There's all kind of technical information and websites that show everything the car on the TV show had, and we really wanted to outdo them. Guns in the hood - check. Guns in the trunk - check. Guns in the doors? ``That was something that was not in the TV series and was one of our biggest challenges on the whole show: the suicide doors. McCarthy laughs. ``One of the cars that was under consideration early on was a Lincoln Continental, which had suicide doors. Michel really liked those, so he asked if we could make the doors open in reverse on the front doors of the Imperial, and I said, 'Yeah, that's no problem at all.' Well, it turned out to be a tremendous engineering feat to make that happen. But they did make it happen. Throughout the story, Kato tinkers with the Black Beauty, converting her from a classic car that perhaps made it out for the occasional Sunday spin to a fully loaded and quite suitable vehicle for the Green Hornet and his late night escapades with criminals. ``Michel decided he wanted the car in the first half of the movie to have normal doors, and then on the car's second or third revision, it would have suicide doors. This created the need to have two separate models, McCarthy explains. Building off the Chysler Imperial body style, which was produced in 1964, '65 and '66, McCarthy built different Black Beauties designed to do different things. Some had working dashboards, some did not. Some were used only for stunts and were installed with safety equipment and special seats. One of the cars sported guns which were hidden above the front bumpers and mechanically moved into position on top of the hood - this didn't allow for an engine. And all these were doubled, a version with regular doors and another with suicide doors. The Imperial was a popular car in its day, so McCarthy and his team were able to locate the cars they needed without much trouble. Parts, however, were more of a concern. ``They're great cars, but you can't get parts for them, he explains. ``You can't buy brand new bumpers, you can't buy brand new trim. I sent two mechanics up to Montana - there's an Imperial graveyard there and we bought a bunch of stuff up there. We really scoured the entire United States for parts and pieces. Then, we could switch out parts between cars - for example, we could move a whole dash from one car to another in between takes. One of the major Black Beauty stunts is at the climax of the film: Kato drives the Black Beauty into the elevator in the lobby of the Daily Sentinel - and when the elevator door closes, the Beauty is sheered in half. When the doors open on the newsroom floor, it drives through the bullpen. ``That car was actually built by John Frazier's special effects crew, explains McCarthy. ``It's a Cadillac Eldorado from the 1970s, front wheel drive. It had a rudder with a wheel in the back so the stunt driver could make sharp turns if needed to get through the set. To pull off the stunt, McCarthy needed three cars. ``First, the car drives into the elevator and gets knocked off. Then, there's a stagnant piece of car that is in the elevator, and then there's another chunk of car that was the hero break-off piece. Watching the movie, you think, 'Oh, they just cut the car in half and drove away,' but there were three complete cars to make that one gag. All the stunt cars, for instance, were drivable and ``were basically built from scratch. We completely gutted the drive train and put in a late model 500-horse-power General Motors engine, different brakes, different suspension, different axle, complete wiring, everything. Those stunt cars went through rigorous testing at the local racetrack, Hollywood Park. ``We did about five weeks on these cars, McCarthy explains. ``Stunts would come out and set up a course and would have guys do different maneuvers. It was great for us to really have a chance to thoroughly test these cars and see every weak link. Even the actors got into the mix. ``The most fun we had, he recalls, ``was when Seth came down one day and just got crazy. He was in the car, there put a camera guy in the backseat, and he burned rubber and did donuts for hours. He loved it. He did great. Jay Chou had the same pleasure, and even Cameron Diaz, who doesn't drive in the film, came out and did ``burnouts, flies and spins. Out of all our cast, she was probably the best driver, McCarthy grins. Stunt coordinator Andy Armstrong says, ``It's a 20 foot long car with a 27 foot normal turning circle, but with the aid of trick front breaks, we can turn the car around in 18 1/2 feet - it's spinning less than its own length. We jumped the car, we landed it in boxes. It's a better developed stunt car than anything I've ever built or have had built in any show. BLACK BEAUTY SPECIFICATIONS 1964-66 Chrysler Imperial GM Performance ZZ454 500hp Crate Motor Race Trans Turbo 400 Manual Valve Body Transmission Moser Ford 9-inch Rear Differential w/4.56 Gears & Detroit Locker 4-Wheel 12-Inch Disc Brakes, Twin Calipers in Rear for Stunts Speedway Engineering Front & Rear Sway Bars Art Carr Shifter Hooker Headers Flowmaster Mufflers Coyes 20x10 Rear Wheels, 20x9 Front Goodyear Tires Off-Road Unlimited Rear Drop Springs Tubular Panhard Bar and Traction Bars Rebuilt Factor Front Suspension, Dropped 3 Inches 12-Gallon Jaz Fuel Cell Demon 750CFM Carburetor K&N Air Cleaner MSD Distributor and 6AL Box Be-Cool Aluminum Radiator Twin Optima Batteries Autometer Gauges Grant Steering Wheel Tommy Lee Steering Box March Engine Accessory Drive System Earls Transmission Cooler Paint and Body Work by Jack's Auto Body Clear Glass from Allen Auto Glass Interior by Reubens Auto Upholstery BLACK BEAUTY WEAPONS Two .30-Caliber M1919 Browning Machine Guns - cartridge-fed, hood-mounted, retractable Eight FIM-92A Stinger Missiles - front bumper loaded Four FIM-92A Stinger Missiles - rear bumper loaded One M2 Grill mounted Flamethrower - modified Two Benelli M2 20 Gauge Shotguns loaded with non-lethal, kinetic impact munitions rifles (rubber bullets / beanbags) - mounted in the light bezels Six AR-15 12-Gauge modified door guns - inset 3 per front suicide door Two Retractable front wheel anti-riot spikes One .30-Caliber M1919A6 Browning Machine Gun on tripod mount - trunk Passenger glove box weapons control with vector graphics Steering wheel d-pad targeting and fire controls BLACK BEAUTY ACCESSORIES Front-end suicide doors Front facing Green HID lamps with Somatosensory Amplification - 6,000,000 candlepower Cataclysmic event front ejector seat system Sony NV-U94T GPS receiver Possio Greta GSM Mobile Fax Machine Sony PS-LX250H belt-driven turntable Danby DIM1524W Ice Maker Rear door child safety locks BLACK BEAUTY ARMOR Threat level NIJ III A Armoring Windscreen and Side Windows in Transparent Ballistic-Certified Multilayer Industrial Polycarbonate Glass Roof, Floor, Front & Rear Panels, Side Panels & Doors Protected with 4.6mm ARMOX Ballistic Steel, Plasma Cut and Welded to Avoid Rust and Penetration Hood & Rear Upper Panel Protected with 12mm KEVLAR plates Overlap Protection on Windows Upper Perimeter and Critical Areas Against Angle Shot Run Flat Inserts on Wheels with Tire Pressure Defensive Regulation System ABOUT THE ACTION UNIT & STUNTS Vic Armstrong, an Academy Award(R) winner, veteran stuntman, and the film's second unit director/stunt coordinator, says that developing an action sequence takes time - as if he is a conductor of a choir, combining many different voices into a harmonious whole. ``The first thing is you talk to the production, the producers, the director. And you decide what type of car chase it's going be, how long you want it to be, how violent you want it to be, how original it's going be - everybody wants original stuff - and what points we want to emphasize in it. And the emphasis in this movie was to show all the gags that the Black Beauty can achieve. But the filmmakers also intended the action sequences to move the character arcs forward. ``We had to show that Kato is really an excellent driver and technician, Armstrong says. ``Then you have Britt, who's not Mr. Magoo, but little things backfire on him. Things go wrong when he handles them, more often than not. We had to take all of that into account. Armstrong's final challenge was to keep the tone of the other sequences in mind. While the action sequences couldn't be played for laughs, neither could they be so serious as to seem like they belong in a different kind of film. ``I find having the comedy aspect was a great relief and offered great freedom for me. It opened up what I could do, he says. ``You can get away with more, pictorially, and push the envelope. Working with a visual artist like Gondry was an unusual experience. ``Some of his ideas are off the wall, says Armstrong. ``He'd give me a rough sketch of how he saw a sequence in his mind, and I'd interpret that into what we could accomplish in real life. The action centerpiece of the film's climax is a chase scene down an LA freeway, with about 10 cars filled with bad guys chasing down the Black Beauty. Each of those cars would have to be disposed of in a different way. Armstrong says that he let the location determine the structure of the chase. ``Rather than dreaming up some fantastical chase and then searching Los Angeles to find locations that suit it, I like to look at locations, let the location speak to me and give me some idea of what can happen there. So we searched all around LA until I came across this mall down in Hawthorne, which for me had a lot of plusses. Since the mall was not in operation, the action unit could have complete control of the location. The roof was about quarter mile long, and was a parking structure, says Armstrong. ``I turned that into a freeway by putting down K-rail. Often times when using a real freeway as a location, productions are only offered about quarter of a mile, the same the parking structure would provide. But by creating a freeway at the mall, production could avoid other issues such as limited time for load-in and shooting as well as traffic control. Additionally, the action unit was able to utilize the inside of the parking lot, the adjacent rows outside, and circular ramps. With Vic's brother, Andy Armstrong, acting as stunt coordinator on the first unit, and Vic's son, Scott, as second unit stunt coordinator and a stunt player on both units, the marriage of first and second units b