Taglines: When our flag fall, our nation will rise.
A small group of heavily armed, meticulously trained extremists launch a daring daylight ambush on the White House, overrunning the building and taking President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) and his staff hostage inside an impenetrable underground presidential bunker. As a pitched battle rages on the White House lawn, former presidential security officer Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) joins the fray, and finds his way into the besieged building to do the job he has trained for all his life: to protect the president — at all costs.
Banning uses his extensive training and detailed knowledge of the presidential residence to become the eyes and ears of Acting President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) and his key advisors. With tension rising, the radicals begin executing hostages and threaten to kill more unless their outrageous demands are met, our national security team must relay on Banning to locate the president’s young son, who is being sought as the ultimate test of the president’s loyalty to his country, and rescue the president before the terrorists can unleash their ultimate, terrifying plan.
“We Don’t Negotiate with Terrorists”
“When executive producer Avi Lerner brought me the script, I knew immediately it was a great piece of material with unlimited potential,” says Fuqua, a director known for his unflinching treatment of gritty urban stories like Training Day, which earned Denzel Washington an Oscar® for Best Actor. ). “It is classic hero’s journey, right out of Joseph Campbell.”
“What struck me about the material was that it was something that I felt that could happen “The title put me in the mind of the Roman Empire and the idea of the myth. Mount Olympus is the traditional home of the Greek and Roman gods. It’s a symbol of limitless power. In our film the White House crumbles in an unthinkable manner. It had so much resonance for me. Rome, the great empire, becomes America, and its greatest monument collapses.”
As producer, Butler was just as eager to sign Fuqua to the project. “When we got this script, I immediately thought of Antoine,” he says. “Of all the great directors working today, I thought he was the one who would absolutely kill it. I love his movies from Training Day, which I think is one of the best movies ever made, to Tears of the Sun and Brooklyn’s Finest. He does gritty action and realism like nobody else.”
Butler’s character, Secret Service Agent Mike Banning, becomes the only option for resolve after a group of North Korean commandoes takes control of the White House. Trapped without backup in the decimated building, Banning engages the terrorists in a game of cat-and-mouse with impossibly high stakes.
Fuqua loved the script’s daring premise. “The White House has been attacked and the president taken hostage. My only question was, how would this really happen?”
He did some preliminary research on the script’s main set piece and was alarmed to find that it was plausible for a relatively small, well-armed, well-trained militia to take the White House by surprise and inflict serious damage in a short time. Convinced he had a story that would be both compelling and riveting, the filmmaker commenced in-depth research of both the White House and the Secret Service to ensure that the story was absolutely genuine.
“We knew that if we got it right, it would blow the audience’s mind and they would take this ride with the characters” states Butler. But every moment had to be justified and real.”
“Never Stronger Than When Tested”
When he started pre-production on Olympus Has Fallen, Fuqua knew relatively little about the inner workings and culture of the Secret Service. Making the movie opened his eyes to the dedication the agents have to bring to their work and the sacrifices they must be willing to make.
“I had no idea how important they are,” he says. “The Secret Service has a training program that is completely separate from the military, the CIA and the FBI. They are always in prevention mode, making sure nothing happens, unlike the military, which trains to attack. They go in first to make sure everything’s clear. They work with local police departments. In some ways they are in control of the president’s schedule. They’re really unique individuals in that sense.”
Their job description also includes being willing to take a bullet for the office of the presidency. “Think about that for a second,” says Fuqua. “Your job is to prevent the president and his family from being hurt. You are expected to step in front of a bullet, if necessary. I don’t know too many people who would volunteer to do that. My appreciation for them is phenomenal. Their lives are constantly at risk and when I learned all of this, I wanted to honor them with this movie.”
In an odd bit of convergence, the director had his first up-close-and-personal encounter with the Secret Service while making the film. “While we were shooting, I got a call from my wife saying the Secret Service was at our house,” he remembers. “I freaked out, thinking it had something to do with the movie. It turned out there was someone special in my neighborhood that day and, apparently, from my house there’s a vantage point of the house he was visiting, so they wanted to use my house for observation. I still don’t know who was in that house, but I found it kind of ironic that, the day I’m shooting the big takeover of the White House, the Secret Service shows up on my doorstep.”
Olympus Has Fallen (2013)
Directed by: Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman, Dylan McDermott, Aaron Eckhart, Ashley Judd, Melissa Leo, Radha Mitchell
Screenplay by: Katrin Benedikt, Creighton Rothenberger
Production Design by: Derek R. Hill
Cinematography by: Conrad W. Hall
Film Editing by: John Refoua
Costume Design by: Doug Hall
Set Decoration by: Cathy T. Marshall
Music by: Trevor Morris
MPAA Rating: R for strong violence and language throughout.
Studio: Film District
Release Date: March 22, 2013
Visits: 44
