Arthur the King hits theaters this weekend, telling the story of Mikael Lindnord on his journey across the Domican Republic in a race which calls for all sorts of adventures and skills. While on the journey and seeking a win after coming up short prior, Lindnord encountered the now titular good boy, Arthur, and made the choice of sacrificing his potential race victory in favor of rescuing the dog. To offer some perspective on Lindnord’s experience, Lionsgate and the Bear Grylls Survival Academy invited ComicBook.com to Catalina Island for a day of experience-it-yourself activities which all fall in line with Lindnord’s journey in the film. The full experience can be see in the video above.
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About halfway through the day, there is a pile of small rocks in the grass. A member of the Bear Grylls Survival Academy summons the group or journalists, TV hosts, and YouTube personalities around him. Under those rocks is lunch. Sustenance of any kind is going to be valuable out the wilderness and if you’ve watched Bear Grylls content, you know it’s probably something that would fit into an episode of Fear Factor under there. Volunteers walk forward, move some rocks around, and discover their treat: gummy worms. Surely, that’s how this whole trip will go, right? The other piles of rocks will also just have fake, candy bugs and stuff? They can’t have a bunch of guests eating real bugs or doing truly dangerous activities, so this has to just be a few gags to set the stage of what it would be like to be out in the jungle? Nope! There was a real tarantula waiting to be someone’s lunch down the line and this is just a taste of what the day was like.
The trip started with waivers. All sorts of liabilities are waived from the inviting studio, the Bear Grylls Survival Academy, and the local locations which would soon be hosting ziplining and kayaking endeavors. It’s standard practice but does help inform the stakes here. When climbing the side of a mountain, one really could fall down and face serious injury.
So, it’s Saturday morning and the sun is barely rising. We are on our way to start the day, which means a bucket of mud is presented by the Bear Grylls Survival Academy and soon it will covering all of our faces. They say this is to prevent bugs and animals from smelling any attractive scents and to protect from the sun’s rays but it was, maybe, 55 degrees out on this day. Muddy faces and all, we move on to a zipline experience – representative of one of the key moments in Lindnord’s journey in Arthur the King. Mark Wahlberg portrays Lindnord in the film but, fortunately for my team, the real Lindnord was in our group and had plenty of helpful survival tips to offer throughout the day.
The team had a few things to protect and use throughout the day, one of them being a stuffed dog representing Arthur. If we failed to keep our eyes on our Arthur throughout the day and get him through the finish line, it was all for nothing! This means I was, at one point, taking a zipline while making sure not to drop the stuffed pup hundreds of feet to his stuffy demise. Fortunately, we made it through. The ziplining experience was a thrilling one. starting the day with an adrenaline-pumping rush above Catalina’s valleys. It was, fortunately, far less dramatic than the sequence in the film which sees Wahlberg’s Lindnord and friends have to use ziplining as a means of travel.
After ziplining, we had to get our wits about us. The Bear Grylls Survival Academy taught us some spacial awareness and reaction techniques, most of which involve not showing surprise or fear. If a big creature pops out, don’t scream (though, you may absolutely want to, even if your face is covered in mud). They called is, “sas!” Making that sound meant throwing up two hands in a protective place for your face while simultaneously being ready to block any strike. This lead to some fun slapboxing in a field, with a bunch of mud-covered adults trotting around land trying to tag each other. It was probably quite a scene if you were just driving by but, hey, we already know how to survive better than you, passenger princess!
Next, it was tme for knot-tying lessons and then using this new knowledge to link our team of 10 together for an alpine hike. You would think, given this is a work trip, that we were probably just going to climb the same rock wall that tourists do at this location. I mean, it’s right there. Surely, we’re just going to race to the top of that thing and safely come back down like anyone used to at their local Dick’s Sporting Goods store. Absolutely not. The Bear Grylls guys carved a path in the side of one of Catalina’s mountains. This was not a traditional hiking path that people just go walk through, by any means. This was a path barely created specifically for this experience, complete with loads of slippery mud, branches ready to break if you rely on them, and some serious exercise. In fact, my shoes were not having the mud at all, so I found myself putting my full 210-pound bodyweight on tree branches. Most of the time that worked… but when a tree branch snapped and I found myself falling flat on my back, the only thing that hurt worse than the landing was knowing everyone saw it happen and started yelling, “Man down! Are you okay?” But, we must continue. For Arthur!
The alpine hike portion of the day ended on a nerve-racking note, perhaps the single scariest moment of the day. At the end of the hike, we unhook ourselves from the group. If we fall, we fall. Quickly, we attached to the rope which will be used to repel but, in order to get to that rope, there is a steep and muddy couple of steps to be taken. I’m not taking chances here. I’m sitting down and sliding my way to that rope. Sure enough, I made it, and repelling backward down the mountain like I’m some sort of Rainbox Six character about to burst into a building was a blast. Lindnord was the last in our group to come down the mountain, so we mobbed him in celebration as Team 2 had no chance to keep up with our pace – something which was made possible by teamwork and good attitudes.
“Like the best things in life, we learn best by doing them,” Grylls said. “Survival s always about attitude. Having that never-give-up spirit, that kind hear that matters so much in survival and adventure racing. So, be a good teammate to your people. Shoulder it together. Go for something bigger than just you.” This advice Grylls offered directly to our team echoed throughout the day, especially in the next activity.
Now back on flat ground, the Academy instructors ruled that a member of each team had a knee injury. We had to build a stretcher out of two pieces of would and some rope, remembering our knots from earlier! For the life of me, I couldn’t remember the knots but, fortunately, team members did and, of course, Lindnord was ready to go. A med pack wrapped up our teammate’s knee and a stretcher was crafted in minutes – but this is when the rain started pouring down. As the camera crews scrambled to cover their gear, we tried to carry our fallen friend to an unknown finish line; over obstacles, under obstacles, across big (and surprisingly dangerous from the perspective of our ankles) rocks, and more.
Once we had made it and got our guy to safety, it was time for our reward: lunch. This goes back to the details that kicked off this story, the moment that really stands out in memory… While the first pile of rocks had gummy worms in it, the others were not quite as generous. The second pile had dry worms and dung beetles. The next, Asian scorpions. The last, a dead tarantula. All of these would be eaten by the group. I ate from the scorpion pile, truly experiencing one of the most harrowing textures of food imaginable and wanting to spew it all out but doing my best to physically refuse the desire (honestly, mostly because cameras were rolling). It was foul. Highly recommend against eating bugs and scorpions. For a week, my stomach was in awful shape and I lost a few pounds. It’s hard to say this was from eating a bug but it’s quite the coincidence, if not!
Fortunately, there was a bit more on the menu; spaghetti and meatballs. These came in small foil packs which we would then put into slightly larger clear plastic bags before opening them. Inside the plastic bag was a rectangular white piece of padding. When water is added to the bag, that pad started steaming. No one was able to explain what exactly the reaction was between the contents of that pad and the water to create intense heat for a short time but it was enough to heat the bag of food and make it the most amazing thing I had ever tasted in my life (by comparison to the piles of bugs). Lindnord noted, these were the exact meals and meal prep efforts made in the true story of Arthur the King.
The break was short, though. it was time to build a shelter out of a small tarp. Building it was easy, basically propping up a tent on the beach. It was the massive bucket of water dumped onto it which ended up being quite the test. Fitting nine people under the tent was impossible, so a few of us ended up pretty soaked on this already-chilly day. If you’re cold, fear not, it’s about to get worse!
Kayaking was the end of the day. After a short safety briefing and putting on our own life vests, hopefully correctly because we just jumped right in, it was time to kayak out into the Pacific Ocean. Getting started was tricky, as some small waves crashed into us and chills took over. But, whatever, just walking the kayak out there in shoes and jeans, there’s no turning back even if my body was literally shaking… there was no turning back! Once out on the water, kayaking was pretty awesome. The sun came out, the chills went away quickly, so long as we didn’t capsize our boat. Paddling in sync proved to be a little difficult but we found ourselves hoofing it across the water before long. This lead to all five kayaks on our team lining up side-by-side in a part of the water where it was so deep, I couldn’t even guess where the ocean floor was. Of course, this is where the two teams on the outside of the five-kayak lineup had to stand up, one person at a time, and walk across all of the kayaks to go occupy the other. Every single person had the same things on their mind: “Please don’t step on me,” and, even more, “Please don’t flip our kayak.” Fortunately, we made it and no one was capsized. And, more importantly of course, Arthur was safe!
Back to shore, day is done, and the Bear Grylls Survival Academy certificates are handed out. Just like that, back to reality. In working at ComicBook for nearly 10 years now and being spoiled with unique experiences, this Arthur the King day with the Bear Grylls Survival Academy day was exceptional. It was physically challenging, actually a bit dangerous (which made it really feel immersive and exciting), work closely with and trust people I had never met before, and pushed me to try new things which I otherwise never would have. This seems to be among both the goals of the Bear Grylls Survival Academy and themes of Arthur the King.
