David Ayer’s body of work has a number of standout projects. He wrote the screenplays for Training Day and The Fast and the Furious, with the former regarded as one of Denzel Washington’s finest roles and the latter becoming a billion-dollar blockbuster franchise. But ten years ago, the director of The Beekeeper wrote and directed the gritty war epic Fury. Set in the thick of World War II, Fury follows a tank crew led by Don “Wardaddy” Collier (Brad Pitt) as they move deep into German territory. The crew’s chances of survival grow slim as they deal with German forces, along with the addition of a new crewmember in Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), a younger soldier who’s not as skilled as the rest of the crew.

Fury has all the components of a great movie, as Ayer pulled no punches when it came to showing the horrors of war. The cast — particularly Pitt and Lerman — gave their all in their performances, and it marked a departure from the cop thrillers that Ayer usually gravitated toward. Fury also became a major box office success, grossing over $200 million in its theatrical run. But a major event could have sunk Fury before it even got off the ground: the Sony Pictures hack of 2014.

The Sony Pictures Hack Led to a Massive Overhaul of Sony’s Slate
Image via Sony Pictures Releasing

In November 2014, a group of hackers known as the “Guardians of Peace” leaked a massive amount of internal emails from Sony Pictures, which included Sony’s plans for its various franchises as well as scripts and completed films that had yet to be released. The reasoning for this surrounded The Interview, the Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy that featured Rogen and Franco as a pair of bumbling newsmen swept into a plot to assassinate Kim Jong Un. Sony eventually wound up pulling The Interview from theaters after the hackers made not-so-thinly veiled threats, though it did release the film online and in independent theaters. But most of the focus surrounded the revelation from the emails, including a massive faux pas that led to producer Amy Pascal resigning from the company and film plans being revealed ahead of schedule or outright changing completely (the biggest fallout led to the deal between Sony and Marvel Studios to share the film rights to Spider-Man).

Fury wound up being majorly affected, as it was one of five films that was leaked to the public. It also wound up being the film that was the most downloaded on torrent sites, only being eclipsed by a similar incident happening in July 2014 with The Expendables 3. Considering that Fury had only been in theaters for roughly a month, the fact that it was still able to collect a solid revenue at the box office is nothing short of impressive and speaks to the power of the theatrical experience.

David Ayer’s ‘Fury’ Is a War Movie to Experience in Theaters

The element that drew audiences to Fury, and helped it overcome the Sony Pictures hacking scandal, is the fact that it is the kind of film that was meant to be seen in a movie theater. Ayer went above and beyond to recapture the experience of World War II, including using actual working tanks during Fury’s production. He also put the cast through the same kind of training endured by Navy SEALS. According to Pitt, the experience wasn’t a particularly pleasant one:

“It was set up to break us down, to keep us cold, to keep us exhausted, to make us miserable, to keep us wet, make us eat cold food.”

That training is on full display in Fury, especially during a skirmish between the M4 Sherman under the main characters’ command and a Tiger tank. The way the crew barks orders and maneuver their tanks in order to deal the best damage will make you feel like you’re watching actual warfare instead of a film.

Fury also held its own in a packed September. That month marked the release of the first John Wick, while the next month would see the debuts of Interstellar and Big Hero 6, both of which were major box office draws. The fact that Fury overcame a devastating online leak, and persevered against some major competition, shows that Ayer made a film worth watching.

Fury A grizzled tank commander makes tough decisions as he and his crew fight their way across Germany in April, 1945.Release Date October 15, 2014 Runtime 134

Fury is available to watch on Netflix in the U.S.

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