Red Notice turns five this week. It was the 2021 American action comedy written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, starring Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot and Ritu Arya. The film became one of Netflix’s most expensive gambles, and its biggest surprises were often off screen.
Netflix’s most expensive film until 2022
The film was greenlit at an estimated production budget of $160 million. By the time it was released, the reported cost had reached $200 million, making it the most expensive film in Netflix’s history and its most expensive original film until 2022’s The Gray Man.
The leads each took home $20 million
Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot were all paid $20 million each to star in the film. Rawson Marshall Thurber was paid $10 million to write and direct. Gal Gadot was confirmed to star in June 2018, and Ryan Reynolds was added in July 2019.
A bidding war that lasted a day
On February 8, 2018, major studios were fighting a bidding war for the rights to an action comedy from Johnson and Thurber. Universal, Warner Bros., Sony and Paramount were all considered. The following day, Universal and Legendary had won the bidding war.
A pandemic split the shoot
Principal photography began on January 3, 2020, in Atlanta, Georgia. Production was halted indefinitely on March 14 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, resumed on September 14, and completed in Atlanta on November 14 before moving to Rome and Sardinia, Italy for a week of shooting.
One of the first FPV drone features
Red Notice is one of the first feature films to extensively use first-person view drone flying for cinematography. Visual effects artist Richard R. Hoover served as the overall visual effects supervisor, and FPV drone pilot Johnny Schaer participated in filming.
The mall globe was never actually stolen
In the Philippines, the SM Mall of Asia’s globe was reportedly stolen by a helicopter on November 13, 2021. The Pasay city police said the globe was not stolen and was just undergoing maintenance for a marketing strategy, and mall management later confirmed the supposed theft was a staged publicity stunt to promote Red Notice.
WWE put a Cleopatra egg in the ring
The film saw a promotional tie-in with WWE, the company where Dwayne Johnson had wrestled and became famously known as The Rock. In addition to promoting the film during Survivor Series on November 21, 2021, a storyline played out involving one of Cleopatra’s eggs that was stolen during the show.
Ryan Reynolds requested Welsh subtitles
Reynolds requested that Welsh language subtitles be provided for the film’s Netflix release. The film received a limited theatrical release on November 5, 2021, prior to streaming on Netflix on November 12, 2021.
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Facts from Wikipedia: Red Notice (film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Film images from TMDB. This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.