The truth about the behind-the-scenes troubles.
There has been more talk about the difficulties on
the set of Bad Cops than about the film itself. It's true tempers sometimes heated
up and the film almost didn't get made, but most of the stories in the press have been
less than accurate.
Evans (left) explains request to craft services boy, Andrew Gordon.
In the last week of shooting the production was already far over budget with most of the
action sequences left to shoot. The last thing the film needed was for one of the actors
to walk off the set for three days. That is what happened when Whittingham had a falling
out with one of the key crew members (Brent Kowalchuck, the head of craft services).
"Things weren't looking good at that point," says executive producer John
Kennedy. "Smoking wasn't good enough for me. I actually started eating my cigarettes.
I wasn't reacting well at all." He just left that stupid car of his parked on a
crucial part of the exterior set and just walked off through a farmer's field. We had to
continue shooting but that damn car was right there in the middle of the shot."
Crew deals with Whittingham's car.
The production unit continued to shoot through the following morning without Whittingham
but as Evans points out, "There came a time when there weren't anymore shots we could
pick up without him so the crew just stood around at a cost of several thousand dollars an
hour. Eventually they got irritable and impatient."
Unable to move Whittingham's car, the crew sets fire to it on day two.
The second day ended and Whittingham had still not been
found. "We were ready to shut the thing down," Kennedy says, "but our
insurance people wouldn't let us because of our enormous debt. We had to keep looking for
him (Whittingham)."
James was spotted by one of the prop buyers in a Regina Burger King. "I don't know
exactly what happened," laughs director Evans, "but there's one story that the
guy told him (Whittingham) that he still hadn't shot his sex scene yet and he should come
back at once. That night we were shooting the night scenes right on schedule."
The car-less Whittingham tries taking one of the police vehicles from
the set to make a drive-thru run.
In
the end tensions were too much for both James and Kevin as they take out
their frustrations on a production assistant.
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