New YouTube video recounts to the wild story behind an incredibly expensive, one out of many shot from The Bonfire of the Vanities. Released in 1990, Bonfire of the Vanities is coordinated by Brian De Palma with a screenplay by Michael Cristofer, adapted from the 1987 novel of the same name by Tom Wolfe. The film stars Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, and Morgan Freeman. While the movie may seem like it has a great deal going for it, it ending up bombing in the cinematic world, grossing just $15 million against its $47 million spending plan, resulting in gigantic misfortunes for Warner Bros.
Now, another video essay from YouTuber Patrick (H) Willems investigates the history behind Bonfire of the Vanities, with an attention on the wild story behind an incredibly expensive and one out of many shot from the film. The shot being referred to is essentially a plane landing on a runway. Despite the fact that it just spans 10 seconds and contains no special impacts, it cost $80,000 to achieve. The reason this shot was so hard to create is because it is just achievable for 30 seconds out of the whole year. Watch the video beneath:
According to Salamon’s book, director Brian De Palma was cited as saying “the day he included the platitude of a plane landing in one of his movies would be the day he resigned.” Therefore, the movie’s second unit director, Eric Schwab, became motivated to create a shot of a plane landing that was so incredible, De Palma would include it in the final cut. The shot that Schwab concocted included an extravagance supersonic plane known as the Concorde landing at JFK airport in Queens, yet he also wanted the sun to set and the Empire State building to be apparent in the background, which was an option exclusively for a 30-second window consistently.
Why anyone would burn through $80,000 of their financial plan on a plane landing on a runaway when they might have easily utilized stock footage or CGI certainly seems like a secret, yet the story behind it is incredible. In the end, they were fruitful and the shot wound up in the final cut of Bonfire of the Vanities. Because expensive establishing shots are almost always created today using CGI, this kind of incredible cinematography has certainly turned into a relic of the past.