Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts, released in UK cinemas last week, features an extended action sequence on Machu Picchu – and in an exclusive interview with NME, the cast revealed the strict guidelines they had to follow during filming on the sacred Inca mountain ridge.
In the sixth film in the franchise, which is based on the successful Hasbro toy line of fighting robot aliens, Dominique Fishback (Swarm) and Anthony Ramos (In The Heights) play humans caught up in a war for space supremacy between the Autobots and their evil enemies the Terrorcons. The movie switches location half-way through to Machu Picchu, Peru, where production on the historic religious site dating back to the 1450s is closely controlled.
“You definitely couldn’t eat or drink or anything on the mountain,” said Fishback. “And you had to hike back down in order to use the bathroom or anything. You couldn’t step on the stones either. And you couldn’t roll things up, so all of the crew had to carry their equipment up the mountain. We had some Peruvian people who are used to [the journey] to take our things up.”
“It was a very spiritual place,” agreed Ramos, before detailing the many granite slabs and structures that litter the mountainside. “You couldn’t call the stones rocks, either. They’re called stones.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Ramos revealed the prop he was excited to take home after shooting wrapped: a G-Shock DW-5900 wristwatch. “I wear it around the house,” he said. “I really like it… It’s so cool.”
Since its release last Thursday, Rise Of The Beasts has enjoyed a strong opening weekend at the box office. Totting up $170million at globally, it managed to beat runaway summer success story Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse in the US, which brought home $55.4million to Rise Of The Beasts‘ $60.5million across the same period.
Reviews for the film had tempered expectations, with NME‘s James Mottram calling it a “safari-themed smash-up” that is “all a bit robotic”. Despite the criticisms, Mottram eventually concluded that Rise Of The Beasts “is still a notch above its predecessors”.
‘Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts’ is in cinemas now