TORONTO — Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu has addressed complaints about the making of his new movie The Revenant in Canada.
The Hollywood Reporter quoted unnamed crew members calling the Alberta shoot “a living hell” and the worst experience of their careers. They said some were fired from the project and some quit.
The Revenant stars Leonardo DiCaprio as 19th century fur trapper Hugh Glass, who seeks revenge on the men who left him for dead after a Grizzly attack. The movie also stars Tom Hardy and Domhnall Gleeson.
Iñárritu confirmed there were issues with crew members during production. “As a director, if I identify a violin that is out of tune, I have to take that from the orchestra,” he told THR.
The Birdman director also addressed production delays and reports that The Revenant is at least $40 million over budget.
“I have nothing to hide,” he said. “There were problems, but none of them made me ashamed.”
Iñárritu blamed the weather in Alberta last fall and winter — first it was too warm for snow (the film’s final scenes are being shot next month in the Tierra del Fuego region of Argentina, where there is snow) and then it was too cold.
“Everybody was frozen, the equipment was breaking,” he recalled. “To get the camera from one place to another was a nightmare.”
In an interview with Grantland, Iñárritu elaborated. “We had a blizzard … and the water was coming from the river, full of snow,” he said. “I was trying to get my phone, to take a picture — and if I take off my glove to take a picture, 40 seconds, I couldn’t feel my fingers. There were moments when you said, ‘What the f*** are we here for?’”
BELOW: Watch the teaser trailer for The Revenant
Iñárritu admitted some of the delays were a result of his wish to shoot the movie in sequence using only natural light, meaning cast and crew had limited daylight to complete scenes. He said a two-week break in December stretched into a six-week hiatus.
Iñárritu insisted no one was seriously injured during filming and he slammed claims that an actor was hurt while being dragged naked along the ground as “a lie.”
He told THR he was concerned about the actor’s genitals. “I asked him several times, ‘Are you fine?’,” Iñárritu recalled. “I was super considerate because he was a nice, 22-year-old guy.”
Another actor, he said, was wearing a damaged dry suit when he was immersed in freezing water “but he was taken care of 10 minutes after he was done.”
Iñárritu dismissed crew complaints about the working conditions and explained to THR why he didn’t want to use computer-generated images.
“If we ended up in green screen with coffee and everybody having a good time, everybody will be happy, but most likely the film would be a piece of s***,” he said.
“When you see the film, you will see the scale of it, and you will say, ‘Wow.'”
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