Ryan Reynolds was baffled by a filming decision for this box office failure

The film “Buried” by Rodrigo Cortés in 2010 is a tense, stressful thriller that has perhaps the smallest setting of any film in history. The story follows an American traveler named Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) who is knocked out and kidnapped while traveling in Iraq. The film begins with Paul regaining consciousness in a coffin, buried alive. He has nothing on him except a lighter and a cell phone. He is contacted by phone by his captor, who tells him that he is being held in the coffin for ransom. Paul must call whoever he can to arrange the ransom, but also any American investigators who could locate and save him. When he calls the State Department, his heart sinks because he is put on hold. There’s surely nothing worse than being put on hold when you’ve been buried alive and your oxygen supply is dwindling.

The entirety of “Buried,” every second, takes place inside that coffin. Since the coffin is a bit larger than a traditional burial box, director Cortés and cinematographer Eduard Grau find many innovative and creative ways to film the action. “Buried” seems to unfold mostly in real time, 95 minutes of panic.

Due to the limited setting, “Buried” could have been filmed anywhere. The director could have come to Reynolds’ house and filmed in a dark room, for all we know. However, much to Reynolds’ dismay, Cortés chose to shoot the film in his native Spain, forcing the Canadian actor to travel abroad. At this year’s TIFF (as covered by EW), Reynolds revealed his four-letter response to the director. To this day, Reynolds still doesn’t know why Cortés insisted on filming in Spain and didn’t move to where his star lived.

Reynolds also revealed that Cortés wanted to do a full week of rehearsals, which would have required the actor to be locked in a dressing room for an additional seven days. “Buried,” for the record, was filmed in Barcelona for 16 days, which is a long time to be incarcerated. Reynolds felt that additional rehearsal wouldn’t help, as he didn’t really need to learn a lot of blocking and the film’s lighting setups wouldn’t be too complex. “Buried” feels more like a play than a film. In fact, when Cortes suggested an extra week of rehearsals, Reynolds told him very clearly, “Fuck you.” He went on to say:

“Because you can’t repeat that, you just have to believe it. If I believe it, you’ll believe it, and here we go. That’s what we did. […] To this day I still don’t know why we shot it in Barcelona, ​​but we did. I thought it could have been shot in my living room. I’m happy to host!”

“Buried” was made for only $2 million, but still had very poor success in the United States. It received a limited release and only grossed around $1 million. Fortunately, the film received more attention overseas, ultimately earning $21.3 million in total. However, due to his poor performance at the national level, he is considered a bomb. Reynolds mentioned that he was ultimately proud of what he didn’t do, but also that he never wanted to do something like that again. Despite its lack of American success, “Buried” was highly praised by some critics. Roger Ebert praised its dark panic and creativity in small spaces. It’s a very desperate film, involving fear and death and little else, but it’s gripping.