..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

September 30, 2003

TROY ROCKS ME LIKE A HURRICANE
by David Poland

Timing is everything.

I made the trek to Troy just two weeks ago. Much of the talk around the Cabo San Lucas set was about the hurricane that missed a few months earlier. As explained by various crew, "If that thing had hit, it would have torn up the wall and just blown it away." The sense of relief that it had not happened was palpable.

The road to Cabo has been a long one. Troy came together in a hurry after years of simmering interest, when the power of David Benioff's screenplay pulled both director Wolfgang Petersen and star Brad Pitt off of other greenlit projects in order to make this film. As Petersen describes it, they saw the script in May 2002 and were in pre-production by September.

Production started in London in April of this year, where the interiors were shot. From there, it was on to Malta, where the city of Troy was built and filmed. A massive undeveloped part of Cabo, about 20 minutes out of downtown, took over the role of the outside of Troy, offering a wide open beach for the 1000 ships to land on and for the wall of Troy, where a massive battle takes place before someone thinks of building a horse of a different color.

In a stroke of luck, principle photography wrapped on Friday, a little later than the original schedule, but in line with the most reason estimates of a wrap date, leaving only a week or two of second unit photography due to be done after the Hurricane Marty blew through town on Sunday.

The biggest problem caused by the Marty was on the beach sets, where the few real ships the show was using were already dramatically burned… and are now apparently destroyed. Also damaged badly was a stone castle that sat on the beach, looking invulnerable to any weather conditions…. except that in reality, it too was plaster.

"The Wall" was built 500 feet across and 73 feet high; creating an imposing landmark that was set for destruction as soon as production was over. Made out of plaster & fiberglass and secured by sturdy rigging, you would never guess how vulnerable the wall is by looking at it.

There was some damage to The Wall and there will be some reconstruction for some of the 2nd Unit production shots that have to be done in front of The Wall. But you can rest your hearts from worries about Brad or Eric or Orlando… they are fine. In fact, there were no humans killed or injured When Marty Met Troy. There was some broken Plaster of Paris, but Paris himself (Orlando Bloom) actually left Mexico weeks before.

The delay to production should be minimal. And there will be no effect on the release date of the film, scheduled for May 14.