Gerard Butler is no stranger to putting in the hard yards on-screen, but his work on Den of Thieves 2: Pantera tested him like never before. The 55-year-old Scottish actor recently revealed that he filmed the highly anticipated heist sequel with a freshly torn ACL, which didn’t exactly make the physically demanding shoot any easier!
“This was a weird time for me at the beginning of this movie because I’d been through a pretty intense surgery, and then I tore my ACL fully about a month later and then started this movie,” Butler told Entertainment Weekly while promoting the film alongside co-star O’Shea Jackson Jr.
“So I was not in the best shape, and it was a pretty physical movie, and I didn’t have a chance to get the surgery on my ACL, so I made this movie with a freshly torn ACL, and it was pretty rough. But yeah… I wanted to put a ‘but’ in to make it sound positive, but it wasn’t positive; it was a nightmare, and I was a whiny little b***h! There were so many stairs. I’m like, ‘Really, we have to set this whole movie on a hill?’ So it was intense, but it definitely made the action scenes… I had to do less acting.”
Butler’s torn ACL is just the latest in a series of physical setbacks the actor has faced in recent years. Speaking to The Courier Mail in 2020, Butler opend up on how his medical issues—including a 2017 motorcycle crash—made him reconsider his career.
“I had a surgery that went wrong, which then became seven surgeries. I had a motorcycle accident that almost killed me, and I suddenly thought, ‘There has to be something more,’” Butler said at the time.
What is ‘Den of Thieves 2: Pantera’ About?
The sequel, which hits theaters almost seven years after the original Den of Thieves, picks up right where the first film left off. Butler’s Big Nick O’Brien is on the hunt for O’Shea Jackson Jr.’s master thief Donnie Wilson, who has fled to Europe and become entangled with a treacherous diamond heist involving the notorious Panther mafia. This time, we’re swapping the streets of Los Angeles for the glamour of Europe, but the heist thrills are undoubtedly still the same.
Den of Thieves 2: Pantera opens in theaters tomorrow. Stay tuned for more updates on the future of the franchise.
In the thrilling sequel, Big Nick pursues Donnie across Europe, entangled in the perilous realm of diamond thieves and the notorious Panther mafia. As tensions rise, they confront the formidable challenges of a colossal heist targeting the world’s largest diamond exchange, setting off an intense battle of wits and resources.
- Release Date
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January 10, 2025
- Director
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Christian Gudegast
- Cast
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Gerard Butler
, O’Shea Jackson Jr.
, Meadow Williams
, Jordan Bridges
, Evin Ahmad
, Swen Temmel
, Bob Jennings
, Michael Bisping
, Salvatore Esposito
, Orli Shuka
, Cristian Solimeno
, Nazmiye Oral
, Yasen Zates Atour
, Dino Kelly
, Rico Verhoeven
, Velibor Topic
, Antonio Bustorff
, Yuri D. Brown
, Birol Tarkan Yıldız
, John West Jr
, Ciryl Gane
, Mark Grosy
, Ignacio Herráez
, Stéphane Coulon - Runtime
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0 Minutes
- Writers
-
Christian Gudegast
