FURY Premier in North America
The activities for Wargaming’s FURY promotion kicked off in North America as that territory was the host of the film’s global premiere on October 15th.
The promotion actually began a week earlier on October 7th with the exclusive announcement of the inclusion of the FURY’s iconic tank to all three World of Tanks platforms with the globally syndicated outlet, Associated Press. This exclusive featured an interview with Victor Kislyi, Wargaming CEO, as well as the FIRST EVER screen shots of the FURY tank in World of Tanks. As of November 4th, the story has generated hundreds of stories in the North America territory.
The following week was packed with FURY activity as team members across many offices came to the star-studded FURY premiere in Washington, DC on October 15th. It was there that the Wargaming team including Victor Kislyi, Markus Schill, Evangelos Georgiou, Marat Karpeko, Erik Whiteford and Nicholas “the Chieftain” Moran mingled with Hollywood luminaries like Brad Pitt, David Ayer, Shia Labeouf and many more as the film was screened for the first time ever. The Chieftain and Twitch’s John Carnage were given media credentials and conducted interviews with our visiting Wargaming team members and celebrities on the red carpet.
On October 16th, the day prior to national release, the Wargaming North American office attended a special advance screening of FURY in Emeryville. The team hunkered into their theater seats, excited about the film and enjoyed popcorn and candy as the epic tank combat led by Brad Pitt unspooled before them.
The North American activity reached its crescendo with a FURY focused 3 hour Twitch stream from the Emeryville office hosted by Jon Carnage, Alex Brewer and Ben Stein. World of Tanks matches with the FURY tank in-game were played on both PC and Xbox 360, as it was the day the FURY tank became officially available across all three platforms in North America. Exclusive interviews with David Ayer and the FURY cast members were featured. The attending Wargamers, FURY premiere sweepstakes winners (EU and US) interviews were played. And finally The Chieftain and Jamie King stopped by to offer a military perspective to the proceedings, as well as jump into a few more FURY tank matches.
FURY Exhibition at Bovington Tank Museum
On October 20, the biggest tank museum in Europe opened an exhibition sponsored by Wargaming to tell the story of the Bovington Tank Museum’s integral involvement with the making of David Ayer’s film, FURY.
The FURY film features two of the Bovington Tank Museum’s prime exhibits: the world’s only working Tiger 131 tank and the Fury Sherman M4 tank. These historical vehicles from the film bring a level of genuine authenticity to the film. The FURY event drew 150 visitors to the historical museum and provided the opportunity to share the Hollywood combat thriller’s behind-the-scenes information. FURY director/writer David Ayer was committed to having only real tanks on the set and the Bovington Tank Museum was key in that effort. In fact when the Tiger 131 reported to the set, it was the first time the mighty tank has been taken out of the museum since its arrival after WW II.
Having provided the film producers with their large armoured “actors”, it was time to take a talented cast of actors and train them to be a battle tested and cohesive tank crew. Museum workshop technicians worked diligently to get the FURY actors up to speed on the operation of the famous tanks.
Wargaming’s special guest of the exhibition was Murray Walker, a renowned Formula One motorsport commentator and journalist who has a very strong history with Bovington. In 1942 the man took a train from Waterloo to Wool where he reported to the 30th Primary Training Wing at Bovington, the headquarters of the Royal Armoured Corps. Murray later graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned into the Royal Scots Greys. He went on to command the Sherman and participate in the Battle of the Reichswald with the 4th Armoured Brigade.
Like any battle-hardened captain, Murray had many amazing war stories. He told guests of the exhibition how he and his fellow soldiers fought against some pretty tough opposition during WW II. The German Army had extremely good tanks that were better than tanks of the British Army. But the English had lots of Shermans and those were extremely reliable machines that contributed greatly to the victory.
Another story was about the road to Lubeck. The 21st Army Group, which Murray’s Brigade was a part of, was instructed to get to Lubeck before the Russians who were advancing westwards, because whoever got to Lubeck first was going to be in a position of controlling Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. It was an enormous dash across Germany. The 21 Army Group met the Red Army way beyond Lubeck, and when Soviet soldiers approached Murray and his fellowmen asking where Lubeck was, they replied that the Allies army got to Lubeck first.
The Bovington Tank Museum’s FURY exhibit also featured uniforms from the film and numerous props straight from the set, all kindly donated by Norman Productions.
In all, the day was wonderful. Legendary vehicles performed greatly twice, first during WWII and second, as the stars of the amazing tank combat film, FURY.
FURY Closed-Door Screening in Russia
A week before the Russian premiere, Sony together with Wargaming held a behind-closed doors private FURY screening in Moscow. Present at the event were the movie’s director of photography Roman Vasyanov along with many well-known Russian cinematographers, showmen, and media.
Roman Vasyanov is a longtime collaborator with David Ayer having worked together on “End of Watch” and was a valued asset for the Fury’s crew. In addition to being a successful cinematographer, he grew up listening to the stories of his grandfather who was a WW II veteran tank commander. Also, she is an avid World of Tanks player!
When the two-hour long screening of FURY ended, the theater erupted with applause. All were very moved by the realism and truthfulness David Ayer his cast and crew achieved with the film. They managed to show how the characters persevered in the conditions of war and ultimately bonded as a crew.
The film’s gritty reality, attention to detail, and the special brotherhood of the FURY crew served as kind of additional motivation to launch World of Tanks, team up with friends, and play a couple of battles.
Roman Vasyanov shared behind-the scenes info about the making of FURY with us, explaining how scenes featuring tanks were the most difficult to film, how actors immersed into the atmosphere of WW II and practically lived in the tank, cleaning it and treating it as their home. The making of the movie was incredibly intense psychologically. To operate the tank as a crew, the main cast was to become like a single organism, composed of five people that understand each other without words. And they succeeded, which lead to several interesting tales. Vasyanov shared a funny story of a quarrel that occurred one day on set. On one day of filming, cast member Scott Eastwood—who played in FURY as one of lieutenants—spit chewing tobacco right on the FURY Sherman. Unaware that Scott acted according to the script, Shia Labeouf and Brad Pitt got furious of such disrespectful behavior and were about to come to blows with Scott Eastwood. Luckily, David Ayer came up on time to break the argument.
David Ayer and his team conducted painstaking research into the topic of WW II and tank combat before they started shooting. Just as we do at Wargaming, they advised with historical consultants, studied archive documents, and even talked to World of Tanks players to depict the war with maximum realism. All of these allowed them to create an emotionally impactful film that rivets the viewer to the action on-screen.
After the screening, Wargaming went to the Lenino-Snegirevskyi military museum near Moscow where Sherman and Tiger tanks are on display. Everyone had an opportunity to get inside the two legendary vehicles, which was a fantastic way to close out an amazing day.