Skyscraper: Did the filming of this film take place on a real skyscraper?

Released in cinemas in 2018, the blockbuster Skyscraperrealized by Rawson Marshall Thurberwill be broadcast for the first time unencrypted on French television on Sunday March 27, 2022, from 9:05 p.m. on TF1. Worn by Dwayne Johnson and neve campbell, this feature film received rather mixed reviews when it was released in theaters. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop it from being a commercial success. With a production budget of around $125 million, Skyscraper raised nearly $305 million in revenue around the world during its theatrical release.

This blockbuster features a fictional skyscraper called The Pearl. It is a construction 1000 meters high, and composed of 225 floors, the equivalent of three Empire State Building. The building houses a 5-star hotel, 3 sports halls, 2 multiplexes with 16 cinemas, a golf driving range, a shopping center on 6 levels, a three-star Michelin restaurant, the Jade Park on 30 floors, as well as a hundred floors of apartments. Currently, the tallest building in Hong Kong is actually the International Commerce Center with over 100 floors. To build this building, the film team wanted to design a building that fits into the culture of the country where it is located.

Skyscraper: a skyscraper referring to an old Chinese legend

Whereas production designer James D. Bissell and his collaborators were looking for a central theme around which to develop their approach, they discovered a Chinese legend, entitled “The Pearl of the Dragon“, that a boy turns into a dragon in a river. After scouting, it was decided to locate the Pearl on the Kowloon Peninsula, and not on Hong Kong Island. This allowed producers to use Hong Kong as a backdrop.

The set design team therefore set about designing a building whose undulating gait must have reminded a dragon. According to Bissell, the building had to embody “strength and resilience, the opposite of The Infernal Towersymbol of excessive pride and whose implicit message is that ‘we have gone too far’. In this film from the 70s, there were corrupt promoters and a crooked architect, whereas in Skyscraper, the building is fabulous. Its only flaw is being coveted by malevolent forces“.

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