In 2008, a flock of birds hit and damage a plane's engines as it is going up into the air. The plane’s pilot, Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger, and his co-pilot Jeff Skiles land it on the Hudson River in order to save the passengers and crew onboard.
Blaine: The idea of turning Chesley Sullenberger’s story into a movie started because of Harrison Ford. Harrison Ford is known as a famous actor, but he is also a pilot and he was at this dinner in Washington D.C. with Sully. They were talking about Sully’s book and Harrison was thinking it should be made into a movie. Harrison thought about pitching the idea to his friend producer Frank Marshall. Frank would later send the autobiography to other producers that he knew and they weren’t sure if it could be a movie or not after reading it. It would show the plane crash, but that would just be it. Sully had informed the producers what he was feeling around the time of the hearing. He was unsure if everything was going to be taken away from him and that became the inspiration for the script.
The people in Clint Eastwood’s office kept telling him he should read the thing about Sully. After they said it three times, Clint decided to take a look at it. He liked it very much. Clint had heard that Frank Marshall and a few other producers were already developing it into a movie. He had contracted them saying why he was right to direct a project like this. Clint Eastwood knows what it’s like to hit the water while being on a plane because he had experienced it once. When Clint was 21 he was a passenger on a Navy plane. He was in the Army, but he was catching a free flight. The weather was bad and the plane had went down off of Point Reyes, California. After the plane crashed into the water, Clint and the pilot had to swim several miles to shore as it was getting dark. The producers couldn’t believe it and so Clint was hired to direct.
Clint felt that the part of Sully was meant for Jimmy Stewart, but he’s been dead since 1997. So Clint had to think about who else was right to play Sully and that was Tom Hanks. Clint knows what a busy guy Tom Hanks is and he didn’t think he would be available. Tom was planning to take some time off because for the past six years he had been doing nothing else but working and he needed a break. They sent the script to Tom and after reading 20 pages of the script, he was very impressed and it was hard for him to say “no” to the project. Tom Hanks was impressed with Clint Eastwood’s style in directing. The sets are always quiet when Clint is directing and he doesn’t say action or cut. Whenever they start shooting a scene, Clint Eastwood will say “ok, let’s start” and when they are finished he’ll say “stop”. The reason why Clint's crew is quiet on the set is because he explains what they are going to be doing before shooting a scene. Clint also trusts his actors and lets them do their own thing when they are acting. Clint doesn’t like to do a lot of takes. He has cameras everywhere and has them in the right place when shooting a scene.
Tom Hanks showed what Sully went through. At first Sully was asking himself if what he did was right and if he made some sort of mistake. He felt guilty and felt he wasn’t a hero. But then Sully realizes that maybe he didn’t make a mistake. Sully has been flying for more than 40 years and he is a professional at what he does. Sully realizes that what he did all depended on timing. Sully cared that every passenger on that plane made it out alive. Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart went to the Virgin Atlantic simulator to see what it’s like to fly a plane. Clint wouldn’t have to tell Tom and Aaron what buttons to push while shooting a scene because they had a lot of training.
The scene where the plane is sinking was shot at Universal studios. The plane set was on a 350 ton gimbal, something that rotates up and down. It took a lot of power to lift an aircraft up and down. There were five cameras rolling and focussing on people as the were trying to get out of the plane. They inflated the emergency ramps and everyone had a good time going down those. Others got out onto the wings. There was 155 people getting out of that plane. Sully visited the set one day to see the scene where everyone is evacuating the plane. Tom and Aaron were the last two people off the plane. They went down the raft and had to go back up in order to disconnect it from the plane. Problem was Tom and Aaron had no idea how to disconnect it. They didn’t rehearse the scene and they were just trying to figure out how to disconnect the tube from the plane while the cameras were rolling. Tom finally found this emergency knife after 45 seconds. Tom felt embarrassed to have Sully see that, so he apologized and Sully told him that it was ok because he didn’t know how to disconnect it either that day. Pilots aren’t use to that sort of thing. Jumping into that raft was new for Sully and Jeff Skiles. Clint wanted some of the people who were actually there that day rescuing the passengers to be in this movie. Like Vincent Lombardi, who was the captain of the ferry that first arrived to the plane shortly after it went into the water, and the rescue divers. It was a real thrill for Vincent and the rescue divers to reenact what they did that day while shooting in New York. Everyone who was apart of “Sully” wanted to make sure they did everything correctly and make it feel real. And Clint Eastwood wanted everything to be realistic.
