Arthur the King is bringing adventure racing to the big screen like never before. The Mark Wahlberg-led film tells the tale of real-life adventure racer Mikael Lindnord (depicted as Michael Light in the movie) and his efforts to win a 435-mile cross-country competition. Throughout the course, adventure racing teams are tasked with running, biking, and kayaking. While most of these elements are assigned, teams have relative freedom to navigate the course as they best see fit. This allows for some flexibility with how they tackle the terrain, and within Arthur the King, that includes utilizing a zipline to get from one checkpoint to the other.
Arthur the King’s Pulse-Pounding Zipline Sequence
And that adrenaline-pumping sequence was purely legitimate.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Speaking to ComicBook.com, Arthur the King director Simon Cellan Jones opened up about how his team shot that zipline sequence, revealing that it was largely a practical endeavor.
“We shot it pretty much for real. We went to an established zipline across this very dramatic valley, and in the story, it’s supposed to be slightly decrepit,” Jones said. “The real one was a good professional place, but it was quite easy to make it look rough. I think that the trick to it was getting all the actors on that zipline for real rather than doing everything in a studio or elsewhere.
“I didn’t know whether Mark Wahlberg was going to agree to go on this thing because in the story, I won’t give it away, but something goes wrong on a zipline and he has to go out there and he’s dangling literally 500 feet above the ground, which is what he did for real. That was quite scary. Of course, it’s very important that we look after our actors.”
Beyond capturing an authentic sense of danger, going practical allowed Jones and company to shoot the sequence in a uniquely immersive way.
“It was also thrilling because we had drones, we had other cameras on the zipline,” Jones continued. “It was really cool to be able to do something quite dramatic and film most of it for real.”
Beyond Wahlberg, co-stars Nathalie Emmanuel and Simu Liu also embark on the stunt. Both told ComicBook.com that they were doing limited acting during the high-octane sequence, as they were legitimately going through the emotions intended.
“I actually really felt the adrenaline of going down,” Emmanuel said.
“It is not possible or feasible to fake these things,” Liu added.
Arthur the King hits theaters on Friday, March 15th.
