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Reel News Tim Ryan |
‘Rundown’ exec praises
Hawaii officials, crewAn exhausted and ecstatic Ric Kidney, executive producer of the Hawaii-based pic "The Rundown" starring The Rock, called to say he wanted to publicly thank Hawaii's film commissioners and local crew who worked on the Universal Pictures' film which, in two weeks, has grossed $32.6 million in ticket sales. Sixty-three percent of "The Rundown" was filmed in Hawaii, Kidney said. The production is applying for Hawaii's Act 221 tax investment credits.
Kidney said there are "a couple things" he and the star "have in the works," including a Hawaii production sometime next year, but he wouldn't elaborate further. The Rock also told Kidney about wanting to do "a more spiritual, cultural type film, more serious than his previous work," like "Kamehameha," which is undergoing script rewrites. "He is very interested in doing that film," Kidney said.
One unexpected pleasant surprise for Kidney was that "in a business sense, Hawaii was much better than we expected" in terms of being production-friendly. He called the local crews "very talented and high quality people." "Everybody was terrific from (Hawaii Film Office manager) Donne Dawson to (Honolulu city and county film liaison) Walea Constantinau."
When the production returned to Los Angeles to complete filming, Kidney was besieged by studio execs and others who wanted to know if the dailies they'd seen of Oahu "were real" or had been CGI enhanced. None of the scenics were enhanced, Kidney said.
But much of that beauty came at a price. The original $65 million budget increased to a reported $82 million. Director Peter Berg had "a pretty clear vision" of what this film was supposed to look like before it started, Kidney said. "We had a few arguments about that ... because his expectations of what he wanted to see were going to cost me a bundle," he said, laughing. "But the first time I saw what we got from a helicopter-mounted 360-degree camera, I was stunned and amazed."
The film's spectacular and much publicized "Jeep Scene" (shot in one day at Kapena Falls in Nuuanu) included eight different camera positions and six different stunt men.
If there's a down side to filming in Hawaii, Kidney said, it's the way "the State Legislature looks at filmmakers.
"They do not take into account what filmmaking can do for the state," he said. "I really don't think they even have a clue."
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Contact Tim Ryan at tryan@starbulletin.com.
