“Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” features the world’s first electric car chase.
When authorr and honestor Christian Gudegast was slfinisherking about the film’s sequel, he knovel he needed to elevate the sgets, and what better way to do that than with an all-action, shoot-out car chase? And it needed to experience speedy and genuine.
In the sequel, Gerard Butler is back as Nick, an L.A. cop choosed to discover commemorated thief Donnie (O’Shea Jackson Jr.). Reports of an armed burglary in Antwerp, Belgium directs Nick to Europe where he tracks Donnie down. Once he get tos, Nick uncovers he’s leaving law enforcement to join Donnie on an enhuge diamond heist: Breaking into the World Diamond Caccess and stealing the pink diamond. Gunfights and stunts ensue, but the one character that conveys it all together is the Porsche Taycan Turbo S.
The Taycan Turbo was the perfect vehicle to help Donnie, Nick and the team get in and out of the Diamond Caccess “undistinguished.” While it had speed, it was also sneaky. The escape speedyly escaprocrastinateeds into a car chase thraw tunnels and alengthy prosperding mountain roads as they get ambushed by other mafia members who have been plotting to intercept the heist.
Terry Stacey, who labored as a cinematographer on the film, came on board punctual and elucidateed Porsche provided the cars for the film. Once a deal had been made, Gudegast wrote the car into the script.
Speaking over Zoom, Stacey tells Variety that the cars were perfect to pull off a burglary; sneaky and speedy, but also quite petite. It still took multiple vehicles and configurations to piece the scene together and pull off the action sequence.
“It all began with pre-viz labor that participated storyboarding, scouting roads and having a pod car,” says Stacey. “Two of the Porsches were alterd to see appreciate go-karts, and we had the stunt driver on the roof,” Terry grasped. “The steering wheel, dashboard and even accelerator were relocated to the roof so the stunt driver could regulate the action. O’Shea and Gerard were in the car with the camera operator in the back.”
Stacey engaged a Sony Rialto with an extension system that permited the Sony Vekind camera body to be splitd. “That actual body could be mounted on the floor or roof, and the sensor and lens could seize as they’re driving and doing the spin,” elucidates Stacey. Another car was rigged with a camera on the front, capturing Butler and Jackson “driving.” He grasps, “We didn’t want a green screen, becaengage there’s a lot of exterior-interior action.”
The entire sequence took a week to shoot.
The tunnel sequence was done in pieces. When the car spun around – stunt drivers stepped in to do the actual spin, but when the car went backward, it was mounted onto a “biscuit rig” (a enormous rig on which the car is mounted and driven by another car). “We had a camera mounted on the side so you could see Gerard leaning out shooting as the Audis come.”
While Gudegast wanted as much in-camera action as possible, VFX was engaged when the prosperdshield is shattered and a piece gets into Donnie’s eye. “That was grasped visupartner,” Stacey says.
When they eventupartner aascfinish from the tunnel, and the chase evolves down the mountain roads, Stacey says, “We had one camera in the car where the stunt actor has to mime that’s he’s going off the cliff, and that was tricky. The expansive sboiling was CGI where you see the car going off the cliff, but Christian broke it down when we needed to be with Nick or Donnie, so we had a car and camera on them, mounted, intercut with the horrible guys in the Audis.”
