‘The Foreigner’ made a big impression on London
Filmmakers blew up a bus, prompting an outcry from residents
Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan’s The Foreigner is making noise around the world, raking in more than $100 million since its opening weekend.
But the real fireworks started in 2016 when filmmakers filmed pivotal sequences for the action drama by blowing up a doubledecker bus on central London’s Lambeth Bridge.
This became a thing when people were alarmed by the sight of a massive, moving bus with an exploding roof on a major London thoroughfare on a Sunday morning.
“Yes, the infamous bus explosion,” says director Martin Campbell, who oversaw plenty of showy stunts when he directed Brosnan as 007 in GoldenEye. But not like this. “We blew up a bus right next to the Houses of Parliament.”
It wasn’t an easy process. Filmmakers worked with local councils to get permission, with assurances of stringent safety precautions. “That took four months of negotiations,” says Campbell.
Residents were warned with letters as well as postings on elevators and in building lobbies about the pending controlled explosion. The area was closed off to the public with large signs placed well in advance.
The local fire department filmed the scene, commenting on Twitter: “Just another day on the river” before showing the moving bus going up in flames.
But some Londoners, such as My Not So Perfect Life author Sophie Kinsella, didn’t get the heads-up. She was part of a flurry of angry tweets from residents. “Hey film types,” she wrote. “Next time you blow up a bus on Lambeth Bridge maybe tell us first so children in park aren’t freaked?
Others were disturbed that the stunt recalled London’s 7/7 attacks in 2005, when coordinated suicide bombings targeted the city’s public transportation system, including one on a doubledecker bus.
The city’s tabloid headlines screamed, which took Campbell by surprise.
“I remember The Daily Mirror, literally on the front page, said something about it being ‘moronic.’ It was a huge headline,” says Campbell. “What the paper says and what the truth was are two entirely different things. They acted like we didn’t tell anyone. We had the blessing of the local city council and everybody else. Everyone was tipped off.”
The explosion fits into the second act of The Foreigner, as the Irish Republican Army explodes the bus as part of its fear campaign, which has already taken the life of Chan character’s daughter, sparking his revenge against an IRA-linked government minister (Brosnan).
The scene is effective in its reality, says Forbes.com film contributor Scott Mendelson.
“It looks very real, and it’s important to the film, driving the narrative,” he says. “The film would be different without this. And it’s not remotely the first film to blow up a bus in the second act. That’s a common action trope.”
But Campbell is certain it marks the last of this kind of stunt filmed in London.
“I don’t think it’s something they would ever do now,” he says.