10 Movies That Took Extreme Measures To Shoot Scenes

2. $1 Million Was Spent Shutting Down Times Square For 3 Hours - Vanilla Sky

Vanilla Sky Tom Cruise
Paramount Pictures

Vanilla Sky's memorable opening scene sees protagonist David Aames (Tom Cruise) pulling up to a bizarrely deserted Times Square and talking a brisk jog through the empty expanse.

The sequence, which runs almost exactly a minute in length, was achieved for real without any visual trickery, and required the production spending $1 million of its hefty $68 million budget to get the tourist hotspot shut down for three hours on a Sunday morning.

In fact, the only visual effect employed in the entire scene was to remove a news ticker which referred to the U.S. Presidential election that took place mere days before the scene was shot and and would've immediately dated the movie.

As wonderfully bewildering as the scene is, that's a hefty chunk of change for such a small part of the film.

Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.