It was a cold and breezy morning in Atlanta, Georgia last February, where the journalists on set assembled to chat with the cast and crew of the upcoming police thriller, Den of Thieves. Gerard Butler had a heavy beard, was wrapped in a bulletproof vest, covered in tattoos, and was sporting a button that read in big white letters, “FUCK YOU” for the role. 50 Cent himself was in SWAT gear, his character in disguise looking to rob a bank alongside actor O’Shea Jackson Jr. of Straight Outta Compton fame. Director Christopher Gudegast was passionately surveying the landscape of the film he is creating with the cast. If nothing else, Den of Thieves can be described as a passion project, as everyone involved seemed positively brimming with enthusiasm as Collider had an opportunity to chat with Gudegast, Butler, 50, Jackson, producers and both military and undercover operations consultants with regards to the film releasing on January 19th of this year.

Den of Thieves sees a group of bank robbers so successful that they make an attempt at “knocking over” a Federal Reserve, which houses so much money that it is more closely monitored and secured than the White House. Big Nick and his crew are the “Regulators”, a group of undercover cops tasked with bringing in the criminals while shakily walking the line between justice and chaos themselves. Here are over 30 facts that we learned from visiting the set itself:

  • den-of-thieves-2-gerard-butler
    Image via STXfilms
    Den of Thieves is a film that has been in the making for ten years—the story itself was written in the mid 2000s.
  • The film wanted to focus on the real life stories of the Los Angeles criminal underworld and not the “Hollywood take of an undercover officer”. The writers, producers, and creative reps involved tried to show the “nasty, dirty, grimy, bloody, vomit covered scab of a life.” “It’s not Miami Vice.” they noted.
  • The filmmakers tried to approach the story with each member of the undercover police team being a “jack of all trades” as “everyone needs to know a little something in order to survive”. There won’t be an “explosives specialist” or a “tech guy” because each member has to be experienced with those areas as part of the task force.
  • The actors quickly formed a brotherhood with one another, as undercover cops in the real world would spend more time with their partners than their wives and their children. Each actor took this mentality into filming as well as the “boot camp” created in order to train the actors in their respective roles as cops and robbers.
  • In fact, two separate boot camps were run in order to get the cops and outlaws in shape, with both groups trained separately to create a rivalry. Not only that, but each group was trained differently by military consultant Paul Maurice. O’Shea Jackson Jr. humorously added during the visit: “I’ll tell you guys a secret about boot camp: it sucks. Looks great for the film though.”
  • There is a mutual respect between the police and the criminals in the story. When one side wins the day, the other will tip their hats in a manner of respect. “The best plain clothes cops were those who walked on the fence at one point in their lives, they can think like their adversaries.” The consultants stressed in that this is an important character aspect that you will see in Den of Thieves.
  • Consultants would stress to the actors that they needed to remember their lines like their lives depended it, because theirs did when they were in hairy situations as undercover cops.
  • “Every possible line will be blurred for the characters” the filmmakers highlighted. Big Nick is a “carnivore” for example, an “alpha male” that eats everything in his path and is the most focused police detective that you’ll ever meet who doesn’t “play by the rules”.
  • The Atlanta Federal Reserve and the New York City Reserve are two of the biggest reserves in the country, guarded to the same level as the White House. This movie wants to show you “how to rob them”. The director and producers actually visited a Federal Reserve bank in order to learn more about the ins and outs of the building itself through a connection of the producer’s, Tucker Tooley’s, father! Of course, they needed to fib a little and say they were filming a romantic comedy when all was said and done, Tooley noted. Each Federal Reserve may have anywhere from $500 billion to $1 trillion dollars inside (unofficially).
  • den-of-thieves-50-cent
    Image via STXfilms
    The movie is 100% R-Rated and it was never a question for the producers whether it would be a PG-13 movie. “A Thinking Man’s Action Movie” is how the creators best describe the film. The film won’t be “gory” or “gratuitous” as they are stressing the realistic approach of the film and were always looking at practical effects in shooting scenes. Black Hawk Down was mentioned in relating it to another R-rated film.
  • The film was mostly shot in Atlanta while the movie itself takes place in L.A. The producers loved the city but an ice storm nearly put a monkey wrench into the production.
  • Regardless of actors being cast, most of the characters remained the same from how they were written. O’Shea Jackson had to be re-written a little due to his younger age, with O’Shea being born in 1991.
  • 50 Cent had a fun rivalry with Gerard Butler, proclaiming that “Big Nick” could never quite do what he did. 50 had in fact read the script six years ago, and was drawn into the movie after being sent pictures of the real life criminals the movie was loosely based on. Jackson approached Tucker, one of the producers, at the Golden Globes expressing an interest in being a part of the project, so he had a real passion for it. 50 Cent was sure to let us know that Gerard would probably appear “smaller” than himself on screen in a funny rib.
  • 50 Cent expressed the admiration for the single writer on the movie with Gudegast on Den of Thieves, rather than the production of a television show where they can have up to 16 writers at any given time, throwing in all their different perspectives. Den of Thieves has the same writer and director so there is a singular vision through the movie’s production.
  • 50 also said that the passion is what was most important in making anything from movies to music. Rather than having giant budgets or the most state of the art technology, the passion that is there bleeds through, which is how he was able to make “some of his biggest songs in a closet”
  • den-of-thieves-2-oshea-jackson-jr
    Image via STXfilms
    50 Cent’s character was once a football player, but wasn’t able to make it because of his attitude so instead joins the military. He was always a natural born leader, and then uses his abilities to perform eight different robberies. He also has the attitude of a cage fighter, “when he’s in danger, he feels that moment and he just acts”. “He really lost his fucking mind though and the reason so many people follow him is just because he hasn’t been caught!”
  • You can’t help but come to like 50’s character from the passion he shows describing him. Ashe put it: “I’m robbing the bank, everyone else just happens to be there.”
  • 50 Cent compares the movie the most to Heat and The Town, while stressing that there are certainly differences between all the films. Comically, he stressed that in the movie, he has five children and stated: “Listen, you go to sleep and I fuck. These kids didn’t happen five times, it took a lot of times. When you rob banks eight times, you don’t have to worry about anything financially!”
  • The writer/director grew up in Los Angeles, seeing a lot of his friends falling in with a rougher crowd, which acted as an inspiration for Den of Thieves. Christian Gudegast stressed the point that both the “heroes and the villains of the film are two sides of the same coin, with little separating them. They went to the same high schools, they lived in the same neighborhoods. The best crime films come from the places where the creators of the movies came from.” Gudegast wants the film to have a “Los Angeles energy” when it comes to the seedy underbelly of the crime element.
  • den-of-thieves-gerard-butler-image
    Image via STXfilms
    Gudegast also highlighted that the fact that his gangster characters are all wearing baggy pants as that was something that originated in L.A. jails, where prisoners were forced to give up their belts so as not to hang themselves.
  • The movie may not be a true story, but it takes elements from numerous true stories that Gudegast has heard, or lived through, and puts them all together “piecemeal” according to the director in order to create a thrilling ride.
  • Gudegast describes the movie as the “Real World of Heat”, whereas Heat was a more stylized view of crime and Den of Thieves is more to down to earth, while also noting how big of an influence director Michael Mann has been on his career.
  • When asked about potential sequels for Den of Thieves, Gudegast humorously noted, “Listen, I have heist movies up the ass so we’ll see. Stay tuned.”
  • O’Shea Jackson Jr will be playing Donny, the getaway driver of the bank robbers’ crew, for which he feels like Los Angeles’ driving has adequately trained him for. “It’s a lot of stop and go. I don’t do the stunts myself because I’m not Tom Cruise yet. I’m more like Black Pitt.” Jackson noted with a smile.
  • Jackson Jr originally joined the movie thanks in part to his study of creative writing as a University of Southern California graduate. Seeing the passion that Gudegast had as both a writer and a director for the project really drew him in.
  • den-of-thieves-cast
    Image via STXfilms
    Gerard Butler’s energy in describing the role of Big Nick and the filming of Den of Thieves in general was ecstatic and contagious. “It’s an experience that I don’t want to end. I’m having the time of my life on this one and I definitely don’t want it to end.”
  • Butler himself was one of the earliest actors involved with the film, having worked on it for many years prior to filming. The script’s use of “mind games” with each of the characters and all the twists of the script itself are what really made him fall in love with the project.
  • Big Nick himself is an addict in many ways, so that when he sees the criminals acting the way that they’re acting, he sees “a challenging and worthy foe that has him creating some interesting drama along the way.” Butler even went so far as to put on thirty pounds for the role, even accidentally going so far as to eat four pieces of raw chicken at a Benihana.
  • The character of Big Nick, played by Gerard Butler, is based on the work of the film’s “Undercover Police Consultant”, Jerry, who lived for years in that world.
  • Butler and Gudegast have worked on four movies together, including London Is Falling, with the actor pointing out the fact that Gudegast was so intense about the film that Christian would direct him regularly about “how he walks” to maintain authenticity of the environment of the world of Den of Thieves. Butler stressed that Gudegast was the best director he had ever worked with and had created the best atmosphere he’s ever seen on a film set.
  • O’Shea Jackson Jr. made a bet with Dr. Dre for $100 in the Manny Pacquiao fight (it is unknown whether Dre has paid off his debt to Jackson).
den-of-thieves-poster