Oh Canada

We Celebrate Canada Day with the highest grossing Hollywood film in history to be filmed in Canada (as of 2007)

What movie ?





The film made $110,000,000 in DVD sales, bringing its total film gross to over $652,771,772. But there is probably another reason besides its big box office that many remember it for.

The cast of TDAT spent 6 monthsfrom November 2002 through March 2003 shooting in Montreal Canada. Now that's almost the entire winter. The irony is they shot almost all the winter footage indoors, in the warm and comfy Cité du Cinéma studio in the Technopark.

"We've shot most of our exteriors inside, re-creating the snow and ice, and the weather, because we had more control, and, frankly, it looks more real", said Day After Tomorrow producer Mark Gordon.

"Also, it would've taken a lot more time to do it outside. We have shot outside with very cold weather, but not a lot. We originally thought we were coming here for the weather but what we realized was that at the end of the day, from a creative stand-point, we were better off re-creating it (inside). To have the control and let us make it look the way we wanted it to look. And a lot of this movie is visual effects, which will create a lot of the extreme weather."

Roland Emmerich said making The Day After Tomorrow "has been a tough slog and it would've been even harder if they'd been shooting on the streets of Montreal at well-below-zero temperatures."

Winters in the North are not for the light hearted. Ski trips and visit family in Utah and Michigan still can't compare to an entire winter in Canada for a guy raised in Texas, or one from California either. It's cold, it gets dark early, the snow seems to never end. What do you during a long cold Canadian winter? Look for the best poutine around? Crazy Canadian dares like, which makes you lose your shirt faster? Canadian 4.0% beer , U.S 3.2. or Canadian Club? And what about the Canadian Geese? With Wimbledon starting to film that July, and Austin having get into world champion form you think he was looking for a practice partner?

And what do you do with so much downtime actually on the set as they set up the elaborate special effects? Crossword puzzles? Books? Or do you just get to know you co-stars very well?

And what's a holiday or a Roland Emmerich movie without some explosions? Here was a quote from Arjay Smith that always sticks out in my mind.

When you look back on filming, is there one day of filming that sticks out in your mind?

Wow. There’s one day that sticks out in mind but it wasn’t a filming day. The whole shoot was just awesome, everybody was just pleasant. But one day one of our actor’s trailers blew up and that was a frantic day. Thank God they weren’t in there.

Why? Because a trailer blew up. Well yeah, but I always thought it was more interesting that he said "one of our actor's trailers" blew up, meaning singular, but then said "Thank God they weren't in there" - which implies plural. Yes I know he could you using a formal pronoun, but don't you think he would have said Thank God he wasn't in there, or Thank God she wasn't in there. What do you think?

And to all of our Canadian friends - Happy Canada Day!