Line #1 Trivia/TheHurtLocker


1	* CareerResurrection: Before this film, Kathryn Bigelow was reeling from a slump that began in 1995 with ''Film/StrangeDays'' and continued for more than a decade with the failures of ''The Weight of Water'' and ''Film/K19TheWidowmaker''. This film's acclaim brought her recognition she hadn't seen in years, and she would later earn an UsefulNotes/AcademyAward for directing it, the first woman to do so.
2	* ContentLeak: The full film was leaked five whole months before its planned release.
3	* DarkhorseCasting: For the main characters, Creator/KathrynBigelow made a point of casting relatively unknown actors: "it underscored the tension because with the lack of familiarity also comes a sense of unpredictability."
4	* DuelingMovies: With ''Film/{{Avatar}}'', of all things. The media talk of the movies dueling was fueled, in part, by the fact that Creator/KathrynBigelow is Creator/JamesCameron's ex-wife. There seemed to be a bit of behind-the-scenes drama going on in the fight to declare one of them Best Picture of 2009. (''The Hurt Locker'' won.) Mostly over who'd grab the most Oscars. All that drama was just speculation, though, and Cameron is on record as praising ''The Hurt Locker'', calling it "this generation's ''Film/{{Platoon}}.''"
5	* StarMakingRole: For Creator/JeremyRenner and Creator/AnthonyMackie. Both were experienced actors and had major film roles (''Film/TwentyEightWeeksLater'' for Renner; ''Film/EightMile'' for Mackie, among others), but this was the movie that put them on the A-List.
6	* TroubledProduction: Not as much as the most egregious examples, but this movie had its share of problems:
7	** For starters it was shot in Jordan. Within miles of the Iraqi border no less. Kathryn Bigelow (the director) actually wanted to film in Iraq for a more authentic experience and only pedaled back to Jordan when the production security team told her they couldn't guarantee the crew's safety from snipers.
8	** Temperatures averaged 44° C (120° F) over the 44 days it took to shoot the movie.
9	** Creator/JeremyRenner got food bugs ''and'' food poisoning during production. And the bomb disposal suit he had to wear weighed 36-45 kg (80-100 lb). Ah, and he twisted his ankle in a scene.
10	** The movie's armorer had to make ammo for a sniper rifle from scratch because supplies did not clear Jordanian customs on time. He used Chinese fireworks as propellant and one day while working in the ammo, the heat and friction caused the fireworks to blow in his face.
11	** Nobody got air conditioning or a private bathroom.
12	** For Bigelow, realism was king. To the point of having extras drop and/or throw real nails, wood and rocks over the actors in some scenes. They even got shot a few times (for real).
13	** Bigelow wanted to immerse audiences "into something that was raw, immediate and visceral" (her own words). That meant 4+ camera teams filming everything at all times. This turned the raw footage into a huge, incomprehensible mess that meant the editors had to make wonders to properly edit the movie (Jordan had no properly developed film infrastructure).
14	* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Creator/ColinFarrell, Creator/WillemDafoe and Creator/CharlizeTheron were originally set to star.

Context Trivia / TheHurtLocker