'The Shallows' Star Blake Lively Gets Physical in Exclusive Behind-the-Scenes Clip
The Shallows was one of this past summer’s most profitable hits, earning $55 million at the U.S. box office — and $116.3 globally — on a mere $17 million budget. More importantly, it was one of the season’s most purely entertaining offerings, a lean, mean shark-attack thriller about a surfer (Blake Lively) who decides to catch some waves at a deserted beach, only to find herself caught in a to-the-death battle with a great white. It’s a consistently suspenseful saga that goes straight for the jugular, and one whose oceanic action is all the more impressive for seeming so real — a fact that, as our exclusive new behind-the-scenes clip reveals, was achieved through considerable movie magic.
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In the above video, director Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan, Non-Stop) praises the hard work of his leading lady Lively. Lively herself admits that “it’s a very, very, very physical film” that required considerable “endurance training and physical training for my body.” In the production clips that accompany her thoughts, one can see the star hanging, falling, and swimming about in the giant water tank used for the film’s climactic encounter between her heroine and the ferocious predator on a giant buoy — footage that underscores Collet-Serra’s canny use of unobtrusive, background CGI to make it seem as if this interspecies clash was actually taking place in the ocean.
Expect more peeks at the special effects work employed for this woman-vs.-shark saga when The Shallows — which is currently available on digital HD — debuts on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Ultra HD on Sept. 27.
