General News

Check Out The New Images And Clips From David Ayer’s FURY

By Michelle McCue | October 6, 2014

On October 17, director David Ayer’s film FURY opens in theaters. For many whose fathers and grandfathers served during World War II over in Europe, this movie will undoubtedly take on a very personal meaning.

Sony Pictures has released six powerful new clips and photos from the movie.

FURY takes place in late-war Germany, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theatre, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) commands a Sherman tank and her five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Outnumbered and outgunned, and with a rookie soldier thrust into their platoon, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany.

“The war’s almost over and this dying elephant – the Nazi empire – is on its last legs,” Ayer explains. “It’s a different world from your usual war movie, where we celebrate victorious campaigns like the invasion of the European continent, or D-Day, or the Battle of the Bulge, these famous battles that American troops have taken part in. One of the forgotten time periods is this last gasp of the Nazi empire, with an American army that has been fighting for years and is on its last reserves of manpower. The men are exhausted. In World War II, you fought until you either won or died, or were grievously injured and got sent home. The fanatical regime is collapsing, it’s a confusing environment where anyone can be the enemy – it’s incredibly taxing on the fighting man’s soul.”

For FURY’s score, David Ayer turned to Steven Price, who earlier this year won the Oscar for his score to GRAVITY.

Price also made heavy use of a choir, often chanting and singing in German. “The idea was that while the characters are supposed to be winning the war, in fact, they’re in the middle of Nazi Germany and surrounded. We wanted to give a very unsettled feeling – the whole score gives you a sense of being in danger. So I used the choir in different ways — sometimes as a group, sometimes solo, very closely miked. It’s this constant presence, this undercurrent of unsettling darkness.”

Kevin Vance, one of the military technical advisors on the film, says that the commitment to realism meant a commitment to a furious, visceral film unlike any WWII film that has come before.

“In most World War II movies, we have this association with ‘the good war’ – and it is,” he says. “But over 60 million people died in World War II. That’s a dichotomy that hasn’t been fully explored, and that’s what David demanded of this film.”

One way that the filmmakers were able to “get it right” was to enlist the aid of a number of veterans of the 2nd Armored Division who served during World War II.

“David is ferocious about authenticity,” says Pitt. In order to make that authenticity happen for the crew, he relates, “he set us up with some beautiful experiences. We got to meet several vets who were all in their 90s; they had survived D-Day landings, and the Battle of the Bulge… it was a very humbling experience to sit in their presence and listen to their stories. They had very visceral descriptions of what it was like to be in the tank: the heat, the exhaust, it was oily, the smell of death was always in the air. Most of them were undertrained, they were underequipped, they were dealing with incredible hardships and weather, lack of food, lack of sleep. And they had to push on under the most harrowing of conditions.”

Details of the tankers’ memories come alive in FURY – for example, that every fifth bullet from the machine gun is a tracer; that there are so many tracers that the heat can melt the barrel; that the difference between outgoing and incoming artillery is the incoming’s telltale whistle; that the outgunned Sherman tanks could find ways to use their exceptional mobility against the Germans’ mighty Tiger tanks. It’s these details that make the film feel true-to-life.

“Veteran accounts are hugely important, because they bring it to life,” says David Rae, one of the military technical advisors on the film.

“They give you the actual ground truth of how a crew fought through different theaters – through Normandy, North Africa, through the low countries, and finally to Germany, that final push. They give you interesting stories that you can grab hold of and emotionally attach yourself to.”

FURY will be digitally re-mastered into the immersive IMAX format and released into IMAX theatres in select international territories starting Oct. 16.

FURY, which features a strong supporting cast including Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Pena, Jon Bernthal, Jason Isaacs and Scott Eastwood, will be released in more than 25 overseas IMAX markets through early 2015, including Australia, Japan, Mexico, Spain and the U.K.

This film has been rated R by the MPAA for strong sequences of war violence, some grisly images, and language throughout.

www.sonypictures.com/movies/fury