However, the filmmaker admitted that he was still nervous about transporting weapons and explosives to the city.
- Aug 3, 2018
AceShowbiz - Filmmaker Peter Berg was given presidential permission to "blow up" downtown Bogota for action scenes in Mile 22 after assuring Colombia's leader his movie had nothing to do with drugs.
President Juan Manuel Santos called for a summit meeting with the Hollywood director as Berg started making plans to shoot in Bogota, and the star feared the project would be shut down - because it was literally too explosive.
But Santos merely wanted to make sure the film would not dwell on his nation's dark cocaine history and drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, like so many Hollywood movies.
"We met with President Santos, who was relieved that it wasn't a film about cocaine," Berg explains to WENN, "but we had to tell him quickly, 'We are going to blow everything up in your city...'.
"He said that as long as it was a fun action movie, they were happy to move the conversation away from Pablo Escobar".
But Berg was still nervous about transporting weapons and explosives to the set.
"We've got gun fights and big explosions right in downtown Bogota," he adds. "We were nervous about bringing weapons and the type of explosives that we bring into the country, but President Santos' guys assured us that we had no problems, and the Colombians couldn't have been nicer.
"And we didn't see any cocaine!".
Berg tells WENN he was encouraged to take a risk and shoot Mile 22 in Colombia by a producer pal behind hit TV series Narcos.
"A good friend of mine, who produces Narcos, has done very well and he was a pioneer, the first one to go down there," the filmmaker explains. "It was on a smaller scale, but he made it work".
Mile 22, which features Mark Wahlberg, wrestler Ronda Rousey, Lauren Cohan, and John Malkovich, hits theatres in the U.S. on 17 August.
