“Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” features the world’s first electric car chase.
When writer and director Christian Gudegast was thinking about the film’s sequel, he knew he needed to raise the stakes, and what better way to do that than with an all-action, shoot-out car chase? And it needed to feel fast and real.
In the sequel, Gerard Butler is back as Nick, an L.A. cop determined to find renowned thief Donnie (O’Shea Jackson Jr.). Reports of an armed robbery in Antwerp, Belgium leads Nick to Europe where he tracks Donnie down. Once he arrives, Nick reveals he’s leaving law enforcement to join Donnie on an elaborate diamond heist: Breaking into the World Diamond Center and stealing the pink diamond. Gunfights and stunts ensue, but the one character that brings it all together is the Porsche Taycan Turbo S.
The Taycan Turbo was the perfect vehicle to help Donnie, Nick and the team get in and out of the Diamond Center “undetected.” While it had speed, it was also stealthy. The escape quickly escalates into a car chase through tunnels and along winding mountain roads as they get ambushed by other mafia members who have been plotting to intercept the heist.
Terry Stacey, who worked as a cinematographer on the film, came on board early and explained Porsche provided the cars for the film. Once a deal had been made, Gudegast wrote the car into the script.
Speaking over Zoom, Stacey tells Variety that the cars were perfect to pull off a robbery; stealthy and fast, but also quite small. It still took multiple vehicles and configurations to piece the scene together and pull off the action sequence.
“It all began with pre-viz work that included storyboarding, scouting roads and having a pod car,” says Stacey. “Two of the Porsches were changed to look like go-karts, and we had the stunt driver on the roof,” Terry added. “The steering wheel, dashboard and even accelerator were relocated to the roof so the stunt driver could control the action. O’Shea and Gerard were in the car with the camera operator in the back.”
Stacey used a Sony Rialto with an extension system that allowed the Sony Venice camera body to be separated. “That actual body could be mounted on the floor or roof, and the sensor and lens could capture as they’re driving and doing the spin,” explains Stacey. Another car was rigged with a camera on the front, capturing Butler and Jackson “driving.” He adds, “We didn’t want a green screen, because there’s a lot of exterior-interior action.”
The entire sequence took a week to shoot.
The tunnel sequence was done in pieces. When the car spun around – stunt drivers stepped in to do the actual spin, but when the car went backward, it was mounted onto a “biscuit rig” (a giant rig on which the car is mounted and driven by another car). “We had a camera mounted on the side so you could see Gerard leaning out shooting as the Audis come.”
While Gudegast wanted as much in-camera action as possible, VFX was used when the windshield is shattered and a piece gets into Donnie’s eye. “That was added visually,” Stacey says.
When they eventually emerge from the tunnel, and the chase continues down the mountain roads, Stacey says, “We had one camera in the car where the stunt actor has to mime that’s he’s going off the cliff, and that was tricky. The wide shot was CGI where you see the car going off the cliff, but Christian broke it down when we needed to be with Nick or Donnie, so we had a car and camera on them, mounted, intercut with the bad guys in the Audis.”
