Pitt of Fury

MANILA, Philippines - Having saved the future in World War Z, Brad Pitt revisits the brutal past in his upcoming action thriller, Fury.

 The $100-M movie follows Pitt as a war-hardened tank commander as he leads an American five-man tank crew on a deadly mission against 300 German soldiers. He’s joined by an all-star cast that includes Shia LaBeouf (Transformers), Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson), Jon Bernthal (Walking Dead), Michael Peña and Jason Isaacs. The producers are poised to deliver what the audience has rarely seen. That is, a relentlessly authentic portrayal — one stuntman was run through with a bayonet on the set — of the extremes endured, and inflicted, by Allied troops.

Here are the highlights of the ways they’re making Fury as realistic as possible.

• It’s the grotesque, demoralizing part of war you’ll ever see. Fury follows an American tank as it rolls through Germany in the final days of the war. “It’s this very sort of post-apocalyptic world and the specter of death is just hovering over everybody,” says producer John Lesher.

• The characters are going through hell… and the actors went through their fair share of it, too. Before arriving to work on set in England, the actors playing the tank battalion went through a week-long boot camp in which they lived and slept inside a real tank. As military advisor David “Sting” Rae explains it, “You’ve got to be bonded.” Sting was on hand to keep up the authenticity during the shoot, as well. “The actors are still asking questions every day, but just to make sure it’s real. They want it to be authentic. They’re like sponges and soak a lot up and keep asking for more and more and more, which is fantastic.”

• The actors were able to meet with veterans who had driven these tanks, as well. “We had four (veterans) come into Los Angeles, before the actors came to London here and had a big roundtable discussion,” Sting explains. “The actors picked these amazing veterans’ brains for like four hours. It was just the actors and the veterans. No producers. No press. It was just about getting deep and being honest and telling real stories, and honestly stories veterans don’t even feel comfortable telling their families.”

• The tanks rolling through the mud “were” real — lovingly restored by collectors from all over the world. Says Lesher, “It’s mightily expensive, but to have these things, the accurate real things, that have never before been in a move before… David and Owen really had a real understanding of what it is.” And the collectors who lent their restored tanks and machinery to the film may eventually become Fury’s toughest audience. “This community of people that are interested in World War II are like comic books fans. They know everything about it. So, if we get any of these details wrong, they’re going to be the first ones to pick it up.”

(Fury is released locally by Pioneer Films.)