At a time when most people are thinking of slowing down, the Bethlehem born producer decided to ramp up the action. He went from overseeing small scale, character driven dramas to coordinating some of Hollywood’s biggest special effects extravaganzas.
Since he produced “Mercury Rising”with Bruce Willis in 1998 Canada Goose Parka and then followed it up with “The Rundown” starring former Bethlehem resident Dwayne Johnson, Kidney’s movies have gotten bigger, louder and a whole lot more expensive.
“In the mid ’90s, I thought action movies were going to be over,” says Kidney, now in his late 50s, from the Utah set of his latest mega production, canada canada goose black friday sale goose outlet “The Lone Ranger” starring Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer.
“But then I did ‘Mercury Rising’ and ‘The Rundown’ and action movies canada goose outlet parka just kept uk canada goose outlet getting bigger and bigger and more and more complicated.
“I started gravitating to them because they take a lot more experience to make. And, in that sense, they’re a lot more fun. It’s a real challenge to figure out how to do some of this stuff.
“You sit in a room with all of these Hollywood crew members and you look at the script and go, ‘How can we do that?’ We do tests and we brainstorm. It’s a much tougher job than [producing] small scale dramas. I really enjoy it.”
Kidney is one of the most respected and well liked filmmakers in Hollywood, according to locations manager and Lower canada goose outlet sale Mount Bethel Township resident Joe Guest, who worked with Kidney on “Salt,”an action thriller starring Angelina Jolie.
“Ric’s a great producer because he’s so level headed and even keeled and he knows about every aspect of filmmaking,” Guest says. “He understands how to solve any kind of problem and that’s key for a producer He can also get along with anybody and he’s such a sharp canada goose outlet guy. That’s a great combination.”
Kidney needed all of his years of problem solving experience to help steer “Total Recall”in the right direction. Budgeted at $175 million, the mammoth sci fimovie a remake of the Arnold Schwarzenegger hit from 1990 included more than 2,000 special canada goose outlet new york city effects shots and took more than 100 days to shoot. (A typical drama is completed in 50 days).
“It took an awful lot of planning,” says Kidney, who is credited as the film’s executive producer. “There were a lot of canada goose outlet canada meetings to figure out the logistics of the movie. It wasn’t a matter of just coordinating locations but also [overseeing] the building of very large sets.
“The whole movie takes place in a city in the future. There was a car chase, for instance, but it was between hover cars. And hover cars don’t exist.
“So we had to conceptualize a hover car and figure out how to put a vehicle underneath it that we’d take out [with computers] in post production. We wanted the scene to look like a real car chase with cars bumping and hitting each other. But it was canada goose outlet uk sale a challenge because this is all taking place in a city that has highways in canada goose outlet uk the sky.”
With the help of an army of concept canada goose designers, Kidney was also in charge of figuring out how to build a gigantic train that runs through the center of the earth in 17 minutes.
“It’s integral canada goose outlet jackets to the plot, so it needed to be right,” says Kidney about the vehicle that transports workers from the post apocalyptic bottom side of the world to the top of the world, which has clean water and air.
Based on a 1966 Philip Dick short story called canada goose outlet in usa “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,” “Total Recall” revolves around Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell), a factory worker canada goose outlet reviews who discovers that all of his memories have been implanted and that he is, in fact, a freedom fighter out to topple an evil regime.
Kidney says the Len Wiseman directed “Total Recall” is a re invention of the Schwarzenegger flick. “Our movie is more serious,” he says. “It doesn’t have that kind of tongue in cheek, Arnie style to it We really went back to the cheap Canada Goose Philip Dick short story and then gave a twist to that.”
In a departure from the earlier version, the action canada goose coats goes deeper into Quaid’s psyche. There’s no trip to Mars and co canada goose outlet online uk star Kate https://www.cheshuntteamministry.org.uk Beckinsale (Wiseman’s wife) plays a villain who is a combination of the baddies played in the original by Sharon Stone buy canada goose jacket and Michael Ironside. “Breaking Bad’s” Bryan Cranston, Jessica Biel and John Cho also star.
“It’s mostly a chase movie,” says Kidney of the Toronto shot flick. “Colin’s character is on the run the whole time so there’s car chases, foot chases, buy canada goose jacket cheap chases through a bunch of elevator tunnels, chases on rooftops. There is no lack of action.”
“Total Recall” is the second time that Kidney has worked with Colin Farrell. The pair first canada goose outlet partnered on “The Recruit,” a 2003 thriller that was one of Farrell’s early hits.
