FILM · 2016 · UK
Bastille Day
36 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (36)
- #001
After the terrorist attack in Nice, France, on 14 July 2016 — Bastille Day, the country's national holiday — which killed 84 people and injured more than 200, StudioCanal permanently removed all of the film's digital advertising in France. The studio announced it would not pull the film from cinemas but would let theatres decide whether to keep showing it. Because the film opened on Wednesday 13 July, the day before the attack, and cinemas closed for the three days of national mourning declared in France, the film's only remaining physical advertising in the country was the posters displayed in cinemas; the studio said the decision to remove or leave up those posters would be left to the theatres, adding that other territories where the film was showing were unlikely to be affected by the changes.
- #002
The film's title was changed for its DVD release in the UK. It was first released in UK cinemas as "Bastille Day," but was renamed "The Take" for DVD there because of the real-life Bastille Day attack of 14 July 2016, which took place between its theatrical and home-video releases. The film's release date had already been pushed back from 19 February 2016 to 22 April 2016 because of the terrorist attacks in Paris and its northern suburb of Saint-Denis in November 2015.
- #003
Director James Watkins told lead actor Sir Idris Elba to study great film anti-heroes such as Popeye Doyle in Dirty Harry (1971) and The French Connection (1971) before filming began.
- #004
Actor Richard Madden was excited to take part in the action scenes and began training with the stunt team about six weeks before shooting. Madden said: "They built these 15-metre obstacle courses where I had to run up and down, jumping over things, throwing myself through windows, rolling down stairs. It was really hard but it prepared me for the chase scenes where I had to climb over rooftops and hang off the sides of buildings. It was important that it didn't look too professional because [my character] Michael isn't a jumper or anything; he's just an ordinary guy, so the rooftop chase was quite fun. I wanted him to slip and struggle for his life as he tried to escape."
- #005
Director James Watkins and his team wanted to shoot in unusual locations in the French capital, Paris. As well as using some of Paris's most famous sites, such as Sacre-Coeur in Montmartre, they also filmed in darker places such as the suburbs outside Paris and the banlieues, home to many of the city's poorest and most deprived citizens.
- #006
Lead actors Sir Idris Elba and Richard Madden used improvisation, which helped build a real and exciting relationship between their characters, Sean Briar and Michael Mason. Madden said: "One of our first days on set, we were shooting a scene in a car in a car park all day and we started playing with a few scenes, firing things back and forth at each other, just having a bit of fun and making sure our American accents were in place. We came up with that kind of stuff for the characters, needling each other and joking around, so we fed it into the scenes, and as a result there was a lot of improvisation at the beginning or end of the film. Even if it wasn't used in the final cut, the experience of playing that way with Idris helped establish the on-screen relationship between the two characters."
- #007
Canadian actress Charlotte Le Bon replaced French actress Adèle Exarchopoulos in the role of Zoe Naville. Exarchopoulos had initially been cast but dropped out to take a role in Sean Penn's The Last Face (2016).
- #008
The gold-coloured Mercedes Sean commandeers after his car is set on fire has the licence plate AU 925 OH. AU is the symbol for gold on the periodic table and 925 is the purity of sterling silver, so the plate reads "Gold Sterling OH."
- #009
For the film's opening rooftop chase, production designer Paul Kirby built a fake roof on top of the BHV department store so that the actors could pass right by the edge of a seven-storey building and appear to have the whole of Paris stretched out behind them.
- #010
Director James Watkins said of the film's opening rooftop chase: "In this scene we wanted to show Paris but also introduce our two heroes and give a sense of the world they're in. Early in the film we're not sure who we should be rooting for, and the points of view shift. Do we want Michael to get away? Do we want Briar to catch Michael? That's the whole nature of their journey together, that constant sense of push and pull. In terms of shooting the rooftop chase, I wanted it to have real speed and reality, so I didn't want to do it with visual effects, so the background you see, we went back to the really old-school traditions of Harold Lloyd, and said all right, I wanted to capture that sense of pace on the roof, so it was important to build a set the actors could really do it on. I also wanted that dizzying sense of danger, that 'Wow, that's a hell of a drop!' feeling." The chase scene is not just an exciting action piece but also a very important moment in the characters' emotional storytelling.
- #011
The producers were fortunate enough to be able to take over the entire rooftop of the BHV department store, opposite Paris City Hall (Hotel de Ville) in the middle of the Marais district of Paris, to film the opening chase scene.
- #012
There was a six-week preparation period for filming the opening rooftop chase, including weeks of training for the two leads, Sir Idris Elba and Richard Madden.
- #013
The entertainment trade paper Variety reported on 18 November 2015: "PARIS — As many studios and independent distributors cancel premieres and releases for security and/or commercial reasons, some companies dealing with terrorism-related pictures face another challenge. Studiocanal is now rethinking its release strategy for the Idris Elba action film 'Bastille Day' [aka 'The Take']. The film is expected to open in the UK on 19 February, in Germany on 17 March and in France in July, but a Studiocanal representative said the release schedule would definitely be changed: 'In light of the recent tragic events, we are reassessing the timing of the film's release in Europe.'".
- #014
The film premiered in France on 13 July 2016 under its original title, "Bastille Day," just one day before the traditional French commemorative holiday of Bastille Day on 14 July. The festival event is the French equivalent of America's Independence Day in the US.
- #015
The largest location in London, England, was the Royal Naval College in Greenwich, which stood in for the Paris streets around the Bank of France where the film's huge finale takes place. Filming in Paris would have been logistically very difficult, and the location's confined structure gave director James Watkins and his team full control over the action.
- #016
For the huge explosion scene, production designer Paul Kirby and his team built a replica of a Metro station behind a building just outside Paris, France.
- #017
The film's release was postponed in various territories because of two series of terrorist attacks in France, one in November 2015 and the other on Bastille Day, 14 July 2016.
- #018
Idris Elba describes his character Sean Briar: "A former CIA operative who has been around for a long time, and after the high-profile covert work he did before, the assignment in Paris is a step down for him. He is just a military man who wants to finish the job and go home. His boss Karen tells him to go and catch Michael, the prime suspect… but Briar believes there is more to the story. That is why these two characters - Briar and Michael - form an unusual duo and find themselves inside a drama, and at the turning points of the story they have to come together and move forward. This is not just an action-packed film; at its core there are characters you care about and a very compelling story."
- #019
Director James Watkins's commitment to the film certainly impressed its producers. Producer David Kanter said: "We were big fans of Eden Lake (2008) and The Woman in Black (2012). He responded very intelligently to the script and during the shoot he had command of every part of the film, understood what he wanted and built a very good relationship with the actors. He set out to create something inspiring and beautiful, and that is exactly what he did."
- #020
Producer David Kanter noted that the characters were developed this way. They are not traditional heroes; on the contrary, they are all flawed and, by force of circumstance, are compelled to discover who they really are. One of the keys to the film's success is that it is believable and realistic. He said: "It is like a film from the 1970s, where all the characters carry something heavy in their souls. They are brought together by fate and realize the bombing is not what it seems, and so they are forced to depend on each other."
- #021
It was the first feature film director James Watkins had directed after a gap of about four years. His previous one was The Woman in Black (2012).
- #022
The production moved from Paris to London for the last four weeks of shooting.
- #023
The cast also included Thierry Godard as Rafi Bertrand, the furious head of an elite SWAT team, and the popular French-Spanish actor José Garcia as Viktor Gamieux, France's Minister of the Interior. Director James Watkins said: "I wanted to create a real sense of authenticity in the film, so I needed French actors who speak French, and the film had to have that sense of reality. Working with them was an absolute pleasure and they brought a very different energy. For me, they grounded the whole film in a sense of reality."
- #024
The film was shot in the autumn (fall) of 2014 in Paris, France and London, England. The main shooting period lasted about nine weeks.
- #025
Scottish actor Richard Madden plays Michael Mason, an American small-time thief who, by carelessly robbing a young French woman, unwittingly becomes entangled in a major conspiracy. With Sir Idris Elba in the role of Sean Briar, it was difficult to find an actor to play Michael Mason who could match Elba's formidable on-screen presence. Director and co-writer James Watkins explained: "Michael is a difficult role. He can be unlikable because he is essentially a man who steals from people and ruins their lives. In the audition Richard brought charm to the character but also danger, and he managed to walk the line between those two sides with incredible skill."
- #026
Richard Madden plays an American pickpocket. Both Idris Elba and Kelly Reilly play CIA agents. In real life they are all British.
- #027
Anonymous Content hired co-writer Andrew Baldwin to write a script based on his original idea, and this formed the basis of the film.
- #028
It is the second film collaboration between actress Kelly Reilly and director James Watkins. The pair first worked together about eight years earlier on Eden Lake (2008).
- #029
The intelligence agencies featured in the film include the CIA and both French internal security and the Ministry of the Interior.
- #030
French director Pierre Morel, who directed Taken (2008) and From Paris with Love (2010), had previously been set to direct the film. In the end it was directed by the British filmmaker James Watkins.
- #031
The main reason actor Richard Madden was so eager to join the project was director James Watkins. Madden said: "I was really impressed by James. He seemed very passionate about filmmaking and wanted to return with this film to films like The French Connection (1971) and [Robert Bresson's] Pickpocket (1959). That was very appealing to me." Producer David Kanter said: "Richard was at the front of the queue and during the shoot he delivered on every promise he made. He is charming, funny and smart and works incredibly hard. Richard learned pickpocketing from a magician. We hired him to teach him and he is really very good at it!"
- #032
"[Co-writer] Andrew Baldwin's original idea, from the time he first shared his inspiration for this film, was to create a film that combined the tense action of the 'Bourne' films with the character-rich experience of watching films like Frantic (1988) and even The French Connection (1971). We believed a film that honoured these iconic films would be commercially viable and creatively exciting. Andrew's central curiosity was to understand what these characters might be doing in Paris and to examine their situation. Producers Bard Dorros and David Kanter said: "Motives and choices under intense pressure, yet it still takes us on an exciting journey in a city we all love."
- #033
"I wanted to make a big Friday night out film," said director and co-writer James Watkins. The writer-director's passion for this film was one of the reasons the producers approached him. This meant getting right into the middle of the action, combining big-budget commercial excitement with a kinetic, in-your-face shooting style, with handheld cameras close and personal to the actors. "We wanted to be close enough to feel them, to feel their breath, to have them right in front of your eyes. Most of the action shots are done from a subjective point of view, so as an audience you feel completely inside the moment. I am not interested in CGI creating scenes that defy the laws of physics! So no matter how big the story is, there must always be a sense of emotional reality in everything. Ultimately you go to the cinema to see people, and the closer you are to those people, the more you enjoy the experience."
- #034
Actor Richard Madden said of the film's story and his character: "I wanted to lose myself in the character and get to know him, to understand him. When we first meet Michael, he has no sense of direction; he steals and he is very good at it and saves a lot of money, but he has no real purpose. He is walking on water. Then, while talking on his phone in the street, he sees Zoe [Charlotte Le Bon] crying and notices something about her. The decision to steal the bag changes his life, because when he throws the bag away he accidentally sets off a bomb with deadly consequences. For the first time he has to take responsibility for something he has done, and throughout the film he struggles with this moral dilemma."
- #035
Director and co-writer James Watkins spoke about the fact that he tried to explore more than the film's narrative excitement. He said: 'We tried to make a Friday night ride for people at the end of a long week, a breathless piece of entertainment. But that does not mean you cannot smuggle things in or glance at current social anxieties. Captain Phillips (2013) is a really interesting example of an incredibly tense piece of entertainment that also manages to touch on a range of social issues such as globalization and inequality without being boring or polemical. I am interested in films that can do that, with high-quality excitement, meaning ones where there are not just armed men wandering around.'.
- #036
According to the film's production notes, Bastille Day is a very fast-paced action thriller, yet its story has embedded layers: personal, action and geopolitical. There is a theme of deception and trust between the characters and between two countries (France and the United States), and of how the characters interact with it.
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