"Wrath of the Titans" Five Film Facts

"Wrath of the Titans," the mythic sequel to the 2010 remake of "Clash of the Titans" (1981), opens epically wide this weekend. Ten years after Perseus (Sam Worthington) defeated the Kraken, the Greeks have mostly given up on their gods. Without prayer, the gods are losing their power, prompting Hades (Ralph Fiennes) to sell out his brother Zeus (Liam Neeson) and team up with their father, Kronos (a 1,500-foot-tall burning ember). As any good Titan would, Kronos unleashes the destructive powers of the underworld to bring about the fall of man. We all know that Perseus isn't going to sit idly by and just watch the apocalypse, but here are five fun facts about the film you may not know.

Clash Rash
Many of the actors received what they commonly referred to as "clash rash," collateral scrapes and bruises that became commonplace on the gritty, chaotic set. Worthington himself had a lingering case, since he performed most of his own stunts. Director Jonathan Liebesman ("Battle: Los Angeles," 2011) saw Worthington scuff himself up so much that the director eventually just got used to it. But don't ask Worthington about his set injuries: "I don't ever talk up my bumps and bruises 'cause I have friends that play rugby league and I'm a wimp actor compared to them."

The Girl on Fire
Former Bond girl Rosamund Pike ("Die Another Day," 2002) is not just another pretty face. The British actress has an English lit degree from Oxford, where she graduated magna cum laude. However, in "Wrath" she's as much brawn as she is brains, playing the warrior-queen Andromeda, who elicits images of an ancient Katniss Everdeen while downing demons with her bow and arrow. Though you would think such a smart girl would avoid putting herself in harm's way, Pike thoroughly enjoyed the action: "We'd have huge wind machines, rivers of fire, columns of fire being dropped 20 feet down, boulders being thrown at us made of polystyrene. We'd have to run through all this mess, and it was like being in a maelstrom. It's exciting. It's a kind of crazy chaos."

Bearded Blokes
Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson are back, and so are their glorious beards. The two blokes from the British Isles first starred opposite one another in Stephen Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List” (1993), which earned them both Oscar nominations. They remain close friends to this day, and had a particularly good time playing brotherly gods Zeus and Hades. “We burst out laughing a few times, because, well, there we were again in long wigs and beards and breast plates, me with my thunderbolt and he with his pitchfork,” says Neeson.

Perseus Part II
Screenwriters Dan Mazeau and David Leslie Johnson created an entirely new myth to serve as the action of this film. While the mythology of almost every character was exhaustively researched, the screenwriters used those myths more as backstory than plot. "In the mythology, Perseus's greatest adventures come to an end after he saves Andromeda, which happened in the first film. We had to imagine what he did next, to invent a new adventure for him, in essence creating a 'lost myth' that feels as though it should be part of his mythos," says Johnson.

Ancient Greeks, New Faces
In the 2010 remake of "Clash of the Titans," Tamer Hassan played the part of Ares, the god of war, while Alexa Davalos played the part of Kraken bait Princess Andromeda. However, neither actor returns for the sequel. Hassan has been replaced by Édgar Ramírez, a popular Venezuelan actor who is currently filming Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty," about the assassination of Osama bin Laden. For the part of Andromeda, the filmmakers chose Rosamund Pike, who stars opposite Tom Cruise in "One Shot," due out this December. Rumors involved both Javier Bardem and James Franco for the part of Ares, and Hayley Atwell ("Captain America: The First Avenger") and Clémence Poésy (the Harry Potter series) for the part of Andromeda.