Top 10 Movie Moments Where Real Things Were Actually Destroyed
#10: Car Drop
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“Furious 7” (2015) One of the craziest sequences of the 7th “Fast and the Furious” film sees Dom and the crew drop their cars out of an airplane. Using parachutes, they drop down safely onto the road and are able to use their insane maneuver to get the drop on their foes. It’s an amazing scene, made all the more impressive by the fact that they actually dropped the cars out of a plane! Although the actors were later composited into the cars, the vehicles are really falling out of the sky. While shooting, though, one of the parachutes didn’t deploy, resulting in one of the cars getting totaled when it hit the ground. Good thing no one was inside!
#9: Truck Hits Hotel
“Jason Bourne” (2016) The “Bourne” franchise features plenty of chase scenes, and they usually feature a lot of destruction. The latest movie in the series sees the titular character pursue an assassin along the Las Vegas Strip. Their vehicular duel ends up destroying plenty of other cars along the way. However, it concludes with the two of them smashing into a real hotel, the Riviera. Because it was set to be demolished, the movie got permission to crash into it; getting a head start on the scheduled knockdown and making for an impressive finish to the chase.
#8: Broken Toilet
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“The Master” (2012) This film follows Freddie Quell as he comes under the influence of cult leader Lancaster Dodd. When Dodd is arrested for practicing medicine without a license, Freddie assaults the officers and is arrested too. The pair are in cells next to each other, and while Dodd tries to calm Freddie down, Freddie angrily lashes out at everything around him, even breaking the toilet in his cell. It’s lucky they got such a great take because the toilet was a historic part of the prison and wasn’t meant to be broken. Guess that’s why they use metal ones now…
#7: Train Crash
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“The Fugitive” (1993) Wrongfully convicted of his wife’s murder, Dr. Richard Kimble is en route to death row when his fellow inmates stage an escape attempt on the bus there. Unfortunately, the resulting chaos leads to the vehicle crashing off the road and onto some train tracks. Kimble desperately tries to save an injured guard and is barely able to escape before the train smashes into the bus. It’s a thrilling sequence, made even more so by the fact that there are no illusions involved – that train really does crash into that bus and derail! In fact, they’re both still where they shot the scene – it’s become something of a tourist attraction.
#6: Mansion Explosion
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“Bad Boys II” (2003) Michael Bay loves a good explosion. “Bad Boys II” is no exception to the director’s most famous/infamous trademark. During the movie’s climax, Detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett attack Cuban drug lord Johnny Tapia’s mansion. Naturally, it’s blown up in several ways, with explosions both large and small, and the detectives even drive through it. The real mansion is in Florida and the owner intended to tear it down to divide it into multiple lots. After putting out a call, Michael Bay answered. While several parts of the mansion that were destroyed were fake and built specifically to be destroyed, the real building is still damaged.
#5: Antique Guitar
“The Hateful Eight” (2015) This western whodunnit sees a group of criminals, lawmen, and ne’er do wells in a small cabin. Bounty hunter John Ruth allows his prisoner Daisy Domergue to play a guitar. However, when Daisy changes the lyrics of her song to threaten John, he snatches it away and proceeds to smash the instrument. Not only is this a guitar being destroyed on screen, but it was also around 150 years old! The plan had been to swap it out with a prop, and you can see that Daisy’s actress Jennifer Jason Leigh has a genuine freak out at the guitar’s destruction. We would have too if we’d known we were watching history destroyed right in front of us!
#4: Historic Bazaar Shops
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“Skyfall” (2012) The opening of Daniel Craig’s third outing as 007 sees James Bond in pursuit of a hard drive with a list of undercover agents in Istanbul. His chase of the list takes him all over the city, including above and through the Grand Bazaar. While one stunt sees both he and the man he’s chasing crash through a window above the Bazaar, the stuntmen reportedly broke several windows of shops within it, including a jewelry store. Because of the historic nature of the site, several of the store owners had a hard time getting repairs done. Diamonds may be forever, but this is one place things can still be broken.
#3: Car Pileup
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“The Blues Brothers” (1980) This film sees the two title brothers on a mission from God, but pursued by the law. In the movie’s many chase scenes, literally dozens of vehicles get destroyed, totaled, and smashed to bits, with police cars getting the worst of it. The production bought 60 of them for filming. The absurd number of wrecked cars was unprecedented at the time of the movie’s release. With how nuts the destruction gets, one has to wonder how crazy the people who made this movie were. In any case, the result is one of cinema’s greatest chases.
#2: Casino Crash
“Con Air” (1997) “Con Air” is ‘90s over-the-top action at its finest… or at least its cheesiest. The finale kicks things up a notch by featuring the plane full of criminals crash landing onto the Las Vegas Strip. It’s an outrageous and exciting scene that sees the plane gradually come apart before finally crashing into a casino. Much like several of our other entries, the casino, the Sands, was due to be demolished anyway, so producer Jerry Bruckheimer was able to secure permission to aid in tearing it down in a spectacular way.
#1: The Hospital Explosion
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“The Dark Knight” (2008) The Joker is a madman, regardless of who’s playing him. The deranged clown is a man of his word though – when he says he’s going to blow up a hospital, he does it! And the filmmakers did it for real! Okay, it’s not a real hospital, it was a condemned candy factory, but the building was demolished with explosives. With cooperation from a demolition company and government agencies, the building comes down in magnificent fashion showing Heath Ledger walking out of it in one take. Even Ledger pausing and fiddling with the remote went perfectly, despite the popular myth that it was improvised. Like the man says, “It’s all part of the plan.”