email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

PRODUCTION Germany

Big Game in Bavaria

by 

- The Rare Exports writer/director Jalmari Helander is going to wrap his new star-driven action-adventure in Germany

Big Game in Bavaria

After the eight-week shoot of Big Game which was filmed on location in Bavaria as well as in the Bavaria Film Studios, Finnish writer/director Jalmari Helander is going to wrap his action adventure that features Samuel L. Jackson as “The President” and Onni Tommila as his 13-year old sidekick. Big Game is a buddy movie in the style of blockbusters such as Lethal Weapon or Die Hard. When Air Force One is shot down by terrorists, the President of the United States gets stuck in the wilderness where his only pal and backer is a 13-year old boy.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Big Game is an action adventure story on an epic scale,” underlines Jalmari Helander. “I’m delighted to be taking this genre on as it has always been very close to my heart, as action-packed adventure stories contain the elements that I believe make movies that are worth watching.” The cast of Big Game is rounded up by Jim Broadbent (Iris, The Iron Lady [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
film profile
]
), Ray Stevenson (Thor, GI Joe: Retaliation), German actor Mehmet Kurtulus (Short Sharp Shock) as well as U.S. actors such as Felicity Huffman (Transamerica, Desperate Housewives), Victor Garber (Titanic, Argo), and Ted Levine (The Silence of the Lambs, American Gangster).

“We are shooting the whole film in the Bavarian state because we need high mountains and a big forest,” says Finnish producer Petri Jokiranta (Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jalmari Helander
film profile
]
) who developed and co-wrote this story together with Jalmari Helander. The exteriors are shot in the mountains as well as in the forest around the Bavaria Film Studio while huge sets such as the Air Force One or the Pentagon command centre were built at the film studio. “The approach of Jalmari Helander is to shoot as much real as possible and to avoid CGI whenever possible,” explains the producer.

Budgeted with € 8.5 m, the Finnish-German-UK coproduction got supported by the Finnish Film Foundation, YLE, Nordisk Film & TV Fund as well as the Visionplus Fund. “We are the first production that got a cash injection from the new fund for international coproductions which was launched by the FFF Bavaria in the beginning of 2013,” states German co-producer Jens Meurer from Berlin-based Egoli Tossell film. The British partner is Altitude Film Sales that already sold the pictures to Entertainment in Great Britain, Nordisk Film in Scandinavia and Ascot Elite that will release Big Game in all German-speaking territories.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy