The number of crash scenes in this film was amazing. Especially considering where they were filmed and that this was all done back before CGI really took off.
I'm surprised the estimated cost for the production isn't higher than what is listed on imdb.
Most of the crash vehicles were standard cars 10 years or older. They costed probably less than 4.000 Euros each.
shareThe point wasn't just the cost of the cars. It was the cost of filming the crashes and chases, particularly in those locations (paying the stuntmen, effects crew, owners of local businesses/government, insurance, etc).
shareronin has some of the best car chases scene ever great movie
shareThe car chases are the best part of the film.
Its that man again!!
@ eolloe: you're probably right. Action films are expensive. That's why I feel they have never done enough advertising for Ronin as far as I remember.
In the directors comentary Frankenheimer says there is a law that clearly prohibits guns to be fired in Paris and yet, the government /city administrations helped a lot in the film making by allowing those shooting and car chase scenes because they wanted films to be made in France. So at least that part was covered.
Not in 1998 they weren't, the Audi S8 D2 Quattro, Volvo Estate V70 R AWD, BMW M5 E34 Peugeot 605 3.0V6 , Citroen XM V6, were all new top of the range models costing 30-50K Euros (in the case of the Audi). The Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 W116 was an older car though.
shareIn case you are talking to me: of course the cars you mentioned were expensive (but most of the other cars that made up the traffic weren't). As I said: making an action movie is expensive.
But there are ways to cut the costs even for these vehicles: at least in Germany (where I live) the price for a used upper class car, especially if they are furnished with the most powerful V8 or V12 engines, drops rapidly because a potential buyer will be afraid that the car has been driven very fast, wearing off the material (why else would the previous owner have bought the expensive engine?), which will result in high maintenance costs.
According to this page http://www.imcdb.org/movie_122690-Ronin.html, the "M5" was just a 7 year old 535. You just polish that and it looks like new in the movie.
Another possibility is that the film makers buy test vehicles from the manufacturer that would otherwise be scrapped anyway (see the page above and click on the Peugeot 406 Coupé photo, for example).