There are A-list actors in Hollywood who turn any film into a must-watch for fans with their mere presence alone, and when two such actors collaborate on one project, audiences are in for a real treat. And it’s not just a treat for fans; more often than not, when two major actors of this caliber, like Tom Hardy and Leonardo DiCaprio in this film, approve of a script and agree to sign on, it suggests a big-budget film with substance. Christopher Nolan’s films, for example, or films like The Godfather or The Irishman all carry this kind of cinephile weight when they arrive on the big screen and on streaming. One film that’s about to make a major streaming return stars DiCaprio and Hardy in very unconventional roles, and it became the torch that finally got DiCaprio his first and only Oscar.
The movie in our crosshairs today is The Revenant, and it’s all set to make its way to HBO Max starting September 1. HBO Max actually has a very loaded slate this month, and in addition to The Revenant, several heavyweights are making their way to the platform. Taken 2, both Zombieland films, Saltburn, <em>Mission: Impossible</em>, and <em>Eyes Wide Shut</em> are some of the most notable titles. Other than these big names, out of at least a hundred titles, an HBO Original series titled Youth is also making its debut, alongside two documentaries, A Killer Story and JAŸ-Z In 8.
‘The Revenant’ Took Realism to Ridiculous Extremes
A lot of The Revenant looks too dangerous to have been filmed the way it appears, and that was very much the point. Alejandro G. Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki shot primarily in remote Canadian wilderness using natural light, sometimes leaving the crew with only a narrow daily window to complete elaborate long takes. When the Canadian snow disappeared before production was finished, they even relocated to Argentina to find winter again.
The famous horse sequence featuring DiCaprio is a great example of where that realism stops being literal and relies on the incredible talents of the VFX team. While no horse was actually sent over a cliff, the practical-effects supervisor Scott Waldbauer once explained in an interview to Vancouver City News that the production built a “mechanical horse mounted on a track,” and a performer rode it for the beginning of the fall before visual effects took over. A separate stuffed horse was then made for the bottom of the cliff. When Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) later cuts open the dead animal and crawls inside it for warmth, the actor was climbing into a prosthetic carcass .
The irony, however, is that plenty of moments from the movie were very real. DiCaprio went into freezing water, ate raw bison liver, and worked in brutally cold conditions while the spectacular avalanche seen in the movie was genuinely triggered and captured in-camera in essentially a one-shot opportunity.
The Revenant will be available to stream on HBO Max on September 1. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
