There's Nothing Fake About The Bees In Jason Statham's The Beekeeper
There's something to be said for movies that go above and beyond the call of duty. If bees can travel up to five literal miles to search for food (according to our good friends over at The British Beekeepers Association, the first and probably last time I'll ever link to such a source for one of these articles), then what excuse did star Jason Statham and the rest of the creative team have to not go the extra mile — you know, metaphorically — when it came to making "The Beekeeper"? For better or worse, we here at /Film have proven ourselves slightly obsessive when it comes to this film's real-world accuracy but, luckily, this latest insight into the production definitely passes the smell test.
For those who haven't yet checked out the latest (ahem) buzzy project from director David Ayer (and you probably should, at least based on /Film's fairly positive review by Ben Pearson), "The Beekeeper" follows Statham's Adam Clay, a former secret agent-turned-beekeeper who is forced out of retirement to do what he does best: kill a whole lot of people in various gruesome, bee-themed ways. Yes, the action/thriller relies on all sorts of movie magic to convince us that, for instance, Statham is actually a mild-mannered guy who would ever be found living a quiet, humble life as an apiarist during his days off. But at least one crucial aspect of filming decided not to have a bee in its bonnet, steering well clear of faking its most important pollinating protagonists.
Indeed, in a recent interview, Ayer opened up about how his action star went and got his hands dirty with a very real hive of bees in the film's opening sequence.
'The zen of beekeeping'
Not the bees! It would've been the easiest (and probably safest) thing in the world to simply replace Statham's winged friends with a bunch of digital ones and zeroes, particularly in an extended initial scene that put main character Adam Clay in the thick of the action as he went about his solitary life caring for a hive of bees. But in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Ayer revealed that Statham did all this for real — not just learning the ins and outs of being (bee-ing?) a beekeeper, but actually interacting with genuine bees. As he explained:
"In the opening, Jason's pulling out the comb, and smoking the hive, and doing all the processes. That's real. The bees are real. He learned how to do all of that. It's interesting, because we see him as this rough punch-up guy, and yet he got the zen of it — he really embraced the zen of beekeeping."
It's good to know that in case this whole acting thing ultimately doesn't work out, Statham has a pretty solid backup plan should he ever want to go that route. (Minus, I assume, all the killing and such.) The same can't exactly be said for Ayer, who suffered a bit more painfully than his leading man ever did. Hilariously, the filmmaker learned a very important lesson during filming. "Jason did not get stung. I got stung a bunch of times because I was operating camera, getting all these tight shots of bees, the hero bee-shots, and I was wearing black socks. I learned that bees will attack black cloth because they think that it's a bear."
And now you know why beekeepers wear all-white. Who said movies couldn't be educational?
"The Beekeeper" is currently buzzing in theaters.