Death Race 2

Development and pre-production

Death Race 2 is a prequel to writer-director Paul W. S. Anderson's Death Race (2008), which itself is a prequel to Death Race 2000 (1975).^[9] The film was put into development by August 2009; Tony Giglio, Anderson's second-unit director on Resident Evil: Afterlife, wrote the script.^[10] Giglio described the prequel, which was tentatively titled Death Race: Frankenstein Lives, as "an origin film, in every sense", of the "Death Race" and the characters Frankenstein, Case, and Lists. Giglio conceived of the protagonist, Carl "Luke" Lucas, as a stark contrast to the Jason Statham character that headlined the previous film, saying: "He wasn't framed. He's not fighting to get out to save his children. He's a convicted cop killer. A guy who's worked for the [American] mob his whole life. A true anti-hero."^[11] Universal Pictures greenlit Giglio's script in November 2009.^[12] Neither Anderson nor Statham returned due to other commitments, although Anderson remained as producer with Jeremy Bolt and Mike Elliott.^[10][13][14] Dutch director Roel Reiné signed on to direct in December 2009, when he had just completed production of The Marine 2.^[15] The crew also included production designer Johnny Breedt,^[16] editors Radu Ion and Herman P. Koerts,^[17] and composer Paul Haslinger (who scored the previous film).^[18]

Reiné called the script for Death Race 2 "a really cool prequel to the Death Race world".^[19] He added a fight scene and a high-speed police chase to the bank heist sequence to establish Luke as a skilled fighter and high-performance driver before "Death Race",^[20] in contrast to the previous film,^[21] and to provide the film with "a spectacular chase to start with".^[22] He also incorporated different beats to the racing scenes, which he felt were derivative of those from the previous film.^[23] Likewise, Reiné pushed the producers to add slow, tender moments to the script to pause for character development and dramatic tension, and to temper the film's rapid pacing.^[24][25] Giglio's script, for example, originally had Luke being brought to fight in a "Death Match" as soon as he arrives in prison, whereas Reiné created a moment to sympathize with Luke as he sits in his cell contemplating his fate as a prisoner for life.^[26]

To facilitate his visual style for the film, Reiné lobbied Universal to serve as his own cinematographer and camera operator—particularly on the "A" camera—in lieu of working with a cinematographer typically commissioned by a studio.^[27] When Universal agreed, he was allowed to hire whom he described as a "really, really high-end" South African gaffer, John McKay, to "basically light the movie" as he shot everything.^[28] Even so, it was McKay who received sole credit as "director of photography".^[29] Because Universal wanted the film shot in high definition, Reiné opted for the Sony CineAlta F35 and the Phantom digital movie cameras. Upon performing a test shoot with the cameras, he found both produced desirable image quality, had better shutter speeds, and could handle quick hand-held movements.^[30]

Goss (2011)

Bean (2017)

Before landing their respective roles on Death Race 2, Luke Goss and Sean Bean had been director Roel Reiné's top casting choices.

Casting began in November 2009.^[14] On March 1, 2010, The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog reported that Luke Goss, Sean Bean, Lauren Cohan, Ving Rhames, Danny Trejo, and Frederick Koehler had joined the cast.^[31] Reiné said he was "so lucky" to get both Goss and Bean on board the project, as they had been his top choices to play Luke and his boss before production.^[32] To persuade Bean to join the cast of a direct-to-video film like Death Race 2, Reiné had to ask Anderson to do it on his behalf; Bean had collaborated with Anderson on his feature directorial debut, Shopping (1994).^[33] Goss told Den of Geek he accepted the lead role because he was sold on the script, which he thought had a plot-driven story beyond the "fun" action set pieces.^[34] Rhames accepted Reiné's offer to play a business magnate from over the phone and gave ideas about the character.^[35] Reiné approached Trejo about playing an inmate, despite what he perceived to be Trejo's hectic schedule working on big-budget films every year.^[36] Koehler and Robin Shou, according to Reiné, were both delighted to reprise their roles from the previous film; each was given more screen time than in the original.^[37][38]

Reiné said the production managed to locate almost all of the cars from the original film in the United States. They bought them back from collectors who had purchased them. Although they had to rebuild two missing ones—a Dodge Ram and a Chrysler—"from scratch".^{[39][Note 2]}

Filming

With a $6–7 million budget,^{[Note 1]} principal photography began on February 13, 2010, on location in Cape Town, South Africa.^[43] The film was a co-production between Germany and South Africa,^[1] and received tax breaks for filming in South Africa.^[4]: 6 Reiné directed the 30-day shoot^[7] without a second unit so that he could shoot independently.^[44] To manage the tight budget and schedule,^[45][46] Reiné said he opted for locations where he could "at least have four or five sets going at the same time";^[47] on each day he would split his time between interior and exterior sets, shooting scenes that were spread across different locations.^[47][48] The film was shot with two each of the Sony CineAlta F35 and Phantom digital cameras.^[49] Because of the weight of the F35, Reiné relied upon the Phantom when he would shoot handheld in addition to slow motion shots.^[50][51] Besides slow motion, Reiné incorporated 360-degree tracking shots^[52] as well as "handheld crane shot[s]" which he accomplished with wire work for a major "Death Match" sequence.^[53]

Prison scenes were shot in an abandoned cement factory near slums outside Cape Town.^[42][4]: 6 A defunct hospital was used as the prison clinic, despite Reiné's complaints about its "disgusting" smell of dried human blood emanating from dirty towels "from 10, 20 years ago" in one of the rooms.^[54] The scene where Luke transforms into Frankenstein was shot in the hospital's kitchen area.^[55] Unable to find his preferred large-scale building that would serve as the Weyland Corporation headquarters, Reiné settled for the Cape Town International Convention Centre.^[56] Racing scenes were shot in the cement factory, among two or three other locations.^{[57][Note 3]} Reiné said the police chase on the freeway, which ends at Cape Town's historic Unfinished Bridge,^[60] could not be shot until Sunday, between six and nine o'clock in the morning.^[61]

According to Goss, he and Reiné decided to film some shots of his driving sequences as he drove the cars, citing Bullitt (1968) as an influence.^[62] When shooting Goss' test drive sequence, Reiné had trouble with the dilapidated Ford Mustang, saying it would either break down or not start at all, in which case he "had to push it for the next day".^[63] Reiné said the other cars used in the racing sequences had to undergo repairs overnight, as they would often break down during the day.^[64] He incorporated 20 percent of the unused second-unit footage from the original film because, unlike Anderson, he had only one week to shoot racing scenes,^[65] during which he was also shooting crash sequences^[65] and wrecking and blowing up the cars.^[66]

Stunts

Reiné made limited use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) to film driving stunts, influenced by his affinity for 1980s action films.^[4]: 5 Likewise, he eschewed stunt doubles in favor of having the actors stage their own fighting.^[67][68] Stunt coordinator Adam Horton described the fight choreography as "more street style, it's more rough, it's more cage fighting, UFC, like Pride".^[69]

For the police chase sequence, the production was loaned a Shelby Mustang GT500 Super Snake^[70] that they had to maintain in pristine condition. Thus, Reiné designed the sequence with Luke not hitting anything on his path, unlike the police.^[71] Goss told Motor Trend that he asked Reiné and the producers for permission to let him do most of his driving with the Shelby, proving he could do so by performing "a J turn and some 360s".^[70] In addition to giving Goss basic lessons on driving the Shelby, the stunt drivers disabled its traction control and anti-lock braking systems to facilitate his stunts.^[70] On shooting the sequence, Goss stated:

As I brake, I know there's a stunt driver behind me that has to brake. He doesn't know exactly when I'm going to do it because I'm trying to find a line. The stunt driver is driving a police car, so he's chasing me in the story. He needs to get super close but I can't help thinking if I brake too dramatically—bang! I don't want to hit anyone, and not all of our drivers that day were stunt drivers. Some of them were told "keep your line, don't deviate" so that when I'm trying to find a line through, it wasn't choreographed. It was a little intimidating but a lot of fun.^[70]

An AOL Moviefone journalist who served as an extra wrote that Robin Shou was nearly killed on set when a rapidly descending metal gangway narrowly missed his head. The extra, Jason Newman, said a miscommunication between Shou and the stunt coordinators on his prison-fight sequence with Hennie Bosman led to the incident. Of this near-death experience, Shou stated he "has never been so shaken".^[6] According to Reiné, Shou told him that it was grueling to shoot the sequence because he and Bosman had to repeat their stunts several times to accommodate Reiné's desire for an excessive amount of camera coverage.^[72]

Post-production

Editing lasted 9–10 weeks; Anderson and producers Jeremy Bolt and Paula Wagner oversaw the process.^[73] The editors' cut was two hours and thirty minutes; Reiné's cut was two hours.^[74] The opening sequence set in the prison yard—which originally ran 8–10 minutes—was edited to two minutes, yielding a final cut that runs one hour and forty minutes. Reiné credits the film's condensed version of the opening sequence to editing notes Anderson relayed during post-production.^[75] One of the cuts that was kept from editors Radu Ion and Herman P. Koerts's assembly footage was the seduction scene in the prison showers featuring Luke Goss and Lauren Cohan, which Reiné said was "really put together" and worked well together with Goss and Cohan's performances.^[76] Reiné said that the film's 700 visual effects shots were largely the result of using green-screen compositing and wire removal.^[77]