Jeremy Renner's Arms Are Partially CGI In 'Tag' Thanks To His On-Set Injury
One of the more unique offerings coming to theaters this summer is the comedy Tag. Based on a surprisingly true story, the film follows a group of friends played by Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Ed Helms, Jake Johnson, Isla Fisher and Hannibal Buress who who have played a game of tag one month out of the year for around 30 years. Even though the premise is far more simple than your average summer blockbuster, the movie will feature a surprising amount of CGI for one very specific reason.
You might remember hearing that Jeremy Renner broke his arms last summer. Funnily enough, he didn't break them while filming his role as Hawkeye while shooting an Avengers movie. Instead, he broke them during a stunt that went a little awry while shooting Tag, and Renner ended up having to wear a couple green screen casts that will be digitally removed in the movie.
Here's Jeremy Renner explaining to Jimmy Fallon how he broke his arms on the set of Tag last year:
This accident happened early in production and Jeremy Renner still had scenes to shoot where his arms would be exposed. Jon Hamm recently appeared on The Ellen Show and talked about Renner's injury, even playfully mocking the actor for getting injured on this kind of movie:
So Renner's injury happened on the third day of production, which means he had plenty to shoot with those broken arms. That might explain why most of the scenes involving Renner in the movie don't have his arms exposed. However, there is one scene where you might want to keep an eye on Renner's arms.
In the Jimmy Fallon video, Renner talks about a scene he shot after learning his arms were broken where he had to throw donuts at Ed Helms. This presumably happens during the same sequence when he splashes coffee in the face of Jake Johnson. During that scene, which appears in the green band theatrical trailer (not found online) and some TV spots, he's wearing a t-shirt with his arms exposed. So keep an eye on his arms to see how good the digital painting is in those scenes.
While this is merely a bit of trivia about Tag, it's also impressive how far visual effects have come. There were days when an accident like this would have caused significant delays and woes for the production. And while it probably wasn't easy to deal with since Renner couldn't be nearly as involved in certain action sequences, the fact that his casts can be digitally removed is just plain cool. And it just goes to show you that not even a simple comedy about friends playing tag can go without visual effects these days.
Tag hits theaters next week on June 15, 2018.