The Russo brothers have been discussing shutting down freeways in cities while shooting their big-budget action movies – whether it’s Cleveland in Captain America: The Winter Soldier or more recently, Prague for The Gray Man – both of which star Chris Evans.
In 2014’s The Winter Soldier, there are two main sequences that use roads – the one in which Nick Fury gets swarmed by Hydra agents posing as cops and the one where the titular Winter Soldier AKA Bucky Barnes lands on a car containing Cap/Steve, Black Widow/Nat and Falcon/Sam. This second scene lasts for around seven minutes and culminates in Steve seeing the face of The Winter Soldier for the first time – the face of his childhood best friend.
For The Winter Soldier, the Russos returned to their hometown of Cleveland and said that initially people were happy and excited that a Hollywood movie had come to town… until they shut down the freeway for two weeks. They believe that they won’t be invited back to either Cleveland or Prague, due to the disruptions caused to the city.
At a press conference for The Gray Man [via ScreenRant], Joe Russo said; “It’s interesting, whenever you go into a town – we did this with Winter Soldier – we shut down a freeway. We went back to Cleveland, our hometown, to shoot the movie and everyone was very happy. And then we shut down the freeway for two weeks and…” Anthony Russo joined in; “I was gonna say, they weren’t that happy.”
Joe Russo continued; “And then they weren’t happy. It was very short lived. I don’t think we can go back to Prague or Cleveland, but we’re very grateful that we were able to shoot on location.”
For more car chases, check out our guide to the best action movies.