WTF Happened to Den of Thieves?

If we’re holding up the all-time best bank robbery movies, a special place is reserved for classics like Bonnie and Clyde, Dog Day Afternoon, Heat, and a handful more. But when it comes to the most underrated recent cinematic bank heists, Christian Gudegast’s 2018 movie Den of Thieves ranks right up there with the most entertaining and hyper-violent examples like The Town, Point Break, Hell or High Water, and the like. Now that Gudegast recently unloaded Den of Thieves 2: Pantera on the masses this January, it’s high time to reflect on the making of the original. 

While a tad long and baldly inspired by Michael Mann’s Heat, Den of Thieves was released in January 2018 to commercial success and middling critical acclaim. For those in the dark, the story concerns a unit of former Marines turned bank robbers called The Outlaws led by Ray Merrimen (Pablo Schreiber) who directs a gallant mission to steal $30 million from the impenetrable Federal Reserve Building in Los Angeles, billed as the bank-robbing capital of the world. 

As viewers watch The Outlaws orchestrate the heist with ruthless military precision, an equally hardened and morally compromised gang of Los Angeles County Sheriff detectives called The Regulars, led by Big Nick O’Brien (Gerard Butler), doggedly pursue the thieves at all costs. The story cuts back and forth between the heroes and villains, with the crooked cops and criminals becoming equally compelling characters testing the viewers’ sympathetic allegiance. Despite the basic plot, the movie is a clear-cut case of execution trumping originality. Now, here’s What the F*ck Happened to Den of Thieves!

Los Angeles native Christian Gudegast began his filmmaker career in the 1990s and logged his first writing credit with the 1997 TV movie Soldier of Fortune. After penning scripts for Rip it Off in 2001 and the Vin Diesel action flick A Man Apart in 2003, Gudegast wrote the screenplay for Den of Thieves with plans to make the film as early as 2003. According to Gudegast, the project was in the works for 14 years, dating back to a blind deal he and his writing partner had with New Line Cinema. When the rights lapsed and New Line lost the property, Den of Thieves moved to Relativity Media, the now-defunct independent distributor and media company. 

With the project lingering for over a decade, Gudegast went 12 years without logging another writing credit. However, all that changed in 2016 when Gudegast wrote the script for London Has Fallen, a breathless action picture starring Gerard Butler. Two years later in 2018, Butler and Gudegast reunited for Den of Thieves, continuing a fertile creative rapport that has led to Den of Thieves 2: Pantera. It may have taken a decade and a half for Gudegast to make Den of Thieves in his directorial debut, but finding Butler to star as Big Nick was a fortunate partnership worth the wait. 

Speaking about his inspiration for the project, Gudegast stated:

“I was fascinated by the specificity of their worlds and how these two crews operate. Understanding what they do, and why they do it, became the fuel for the movie.”

Strapped with a $30 million budget, principal photography on Den of Thieves began in January 2018 and wrapped after a 52-day film shoot. Despite the story being set in Los Angeles, the break-neck shoot occurred in the greater Atlanta area in Georgia to take advantage of the state’s tax incentives. For instance, Ziggy’s nightclub in the movie was filmed at Johnny’s Hideaway in Atlanta. Speaking of Ziggy, he is played by Gudegast’s father, Eric Braeden. 

Addressing the Atlanta for Los Angeles film shoot, Gudegast stressed the importance of authenticity, stating:

“When the production team arrived in Atlanta, I was hyper-specific when looking for how we were going to reproduce those elements there. It was down to how the murals on walls looked, the color scheme, rims on cars. So as careful as we were in choosing our locations, that same specificity applied to the shots where we sort of went for a hot, Los Angeles weather look; kind of smoggy and golden but not pretty. At night, we play with the natural elements and there’s a cooler blue metallic light.”

The Savings & Loan bank seen in Pico Rivera was shot on Lakewood Avenue in Atlanta. The savage showdown between Big Nick and Merrimen was filmed on Bluff Street. The only footage in Los Angeles includes aerial shots of downtown, the Vincent Thomas Bridge, Terminal Island, and the Federal Corrections Institution.

The visceral traffic jam shootout along the Alameda Corridor was filmed on Murphy Avenue. The sequence took 10 days to film, using four city blocks and destroying 50 of the 250 cars allocated. Ten thousand rounds of ammo were pumped out during the Alameda Corridor sequence. The intense shootout was achieved by rigging machine guns with trunnion guns, “which are tubes rigged to go off at the same time as the big machine gun,” according to Special FX Supervisor, Yves Debond. “I wanted the hits to look more like a gouge, and we’d run an electrical loom to the car to fire it.” The result creates a rapid-fire hail of bullets that appear as raw and realistic as possible.

With characters firing up to 30 rounds every two seconds, an estimated half a million rounds were used while filming the final shootout alone. According to Jackson Jr., residents nearby had to be warned to avoid calling the police before the shooting occurred. 

To prepare for his role as the ethically challenged Nick O’Brien, Gudegast encouraged Gerard Butler to gain 25 pounds, which the actor obliged. Butler also drew inspiration for his performance from Jay Dobyns, who was credited as an actor and a technical consultant on the movie. Dobyns is a former Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) agent who made a career of risking his life to infiltrate violent Los Angeles gangs and bring them to justice as an undercover officer. In addition to inspiring Butler’s character and lending technical support to the crew, Dobyns makes a cameo as a patron closing his tab at the bar where Donnie works at the end of the film. 

In describing Big Nick, Gudegast notes:

“The character’s a silverback gorilla who devours everything within reach,” laughed the director. “He’s a force. He walks in and he just takes over the environment. Nick is classic. He’s funny and he’s a badass. He’s in major crimes, so he’s got to be – he’s dealing with the worst of the worst every day, hunting them. We drilled that character all the way down and Gerry was unbelievable.”

Butler chimed in about what attracted him to the movie, adding:

“What I love about this movie is that it has a taste, an ingredient, of many of my favorite films, like Heist and Heat, with touches of a Dog Day Afternoon and The French Connection. But it stands entirely on its own. It may be a complex heist film, but there’s a surprising amount of heart and emotion. It has the potential to become one of those unforgettable movies because of the characters we’ve created.”

Beyond Butler’s preparation, Gudegast divided the actors into two sides to train for their roles. Before filming, boot camps were set up with the police detectives on one side and the bank robbers on the other. The actors underwent extensive weapons training for two weeks to ensure their onscreen gunplay was fluid and authentic. The two groups handled real weapons to get a feel for the weight of each gun but practiced shooting with paintballs to master firing on the move while walking, running, and jumping. 

The separate training regiments were also meant to foster camaraderie on each side and bolster their rivalry. Although each camp trained separately, both were supervised by real-life active military consultant Paul Maurice. Between Maurice and Dobyns’ contributions, it’s easy to see how muscular and masculine the movie becomes. To this end, real-life UFC veterans Michael Bisping, Max Holloway, John Lewis, and Oleg Taktarov play various supporting cast members in Den of Thieves, adding to the retro machismo of halcyon-day action classics that give the movie its badass edge.

Regarding Maurice’s contributions, Gudegast stated:

“He gave the Outlaws tremendous confidence. They trained hard out on the firing range. They drilled in repetition until their movements with the firearms were completely fluid: They could load, unload, change mags – the way they manipulated the firearms was just awesome, and that was Paul’s doing.”

Although Den of Thieves runs for a rather lengthy 140 minutes, Gudegast’s original cut lasted 20 minutes longer. Most of the deleted scenes, which can be found on YouTube, involve intimate character development, with Big Nick and Enson (Curtis Jackson) spending time with their families in between the heists. One scene features Nick and Debbie (Dawn Olivieri) hashing out their marital problems on the beach, with the former vowing to attend therapy. Another includes Enson dealing with his daughters at home over breakfast. However, it’s worth noting that Gudegast planned a much different ending for Den of Thieves than what made it into the theatrical cut. 

Also available online, the 2-minute alternate ending depicts Big Nick realizing that Donnie Wilson (O’Shea Jackson) masterminded the entire heist the whole time. However, rather than fleeing to London to set up another robbery, Donnie is captured and jailed. Not only is the alternate ending much more conventional and anticlimactic than the theatrical version, but it also robs fans of a potential sequel. Thanks to the ending featured in the theatrical cut, Den of Thieves 2: Pantera expands its sticky fingers to Europe for a brand new heist. 

Before detailing the specifics of the sequel, it’s worth recognizing how commercially viable the original proved to be. Upon its release in early 2018, Den of Thieves bagged $80 million in worldwide ticket sales, nearly tripling its modest $30 million budget. While most critics couldn’t look past the movie’s overt Heat imitation with wannabe Michael Mann aesthetics, Den of Thieves blasted its way to such financial success that a sequel was inevitable. Although it took roughly seven years to produce said sequel, the lucky number promises another relentless and hyper-violent affair this coming new year. 

Following the Den of Thieves’ success, a sequel was planned to film as early as 2022. Writer/director Christian Gudegast has returned for the sequel, with Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr. reprising their respective roles. The film grossed about the same amount as the first film, and indeed, a third film is now on the way.

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