Some comedy movies lately have put a weirdly heavy dependance on CGI for big physical gags, probably because today’s actors are too important to put in harm’s way for a standard pratfall, but it turns out that the CGI in the upcoming comedy Tag was definitely necessary. As dedicated Tag-heads will certainly recall, star Jeremy Renner broke both of his arms while filming a stunt for the film last year, and his co-star Jon Hamm recently appeared on Ellen and revealed that his casts demanded a lot of digital-effects work. Hamm says that Renner broke his arms on the third day of the production, so he had to wear special green casts that could easily be edited out.
That seems to imply that at least some of the scenes in Tag that involve Renner using his arms were made with CG, and the trailer does have a lot of shots where Renner doesn’t move very much. Of course, it also has a lot of shots where Renner does do things with his arms, so maybe this isn’t as dramatic as it seems (unless computer effects are just totally bananas these days).
The real point here, though, is that pre-CG footage of Renner pretending to use his arms while wearing green-covered casts must exist, and we would really like to see it. Warner Bros. never gave us the mustache Superman of our dreams, so it would be nice if whatever studio is putting out Tag would at least give us this consolation prize, assuming it’s not another studio of heartless jerks who won’t let us have fun. (Spoiler alert: Tag was produced by New Line, a subsidiary of none other than Warner Bros. Entertainment.)
On a less fun note, it does seem like a lot of people are getting injured (or killed) in stunts these days. Maybe filmmakers should actually be using more CGI than they have been?