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Gerard Butler: ‘My pecs couldn’t handle wire work for Geostorm!’

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Wenn

Gerard Butler’s pectoral muscles failed on him while shooting outer space scenes on wires for Geostorm.

The British actor stars in the disaster movie as Jake Lawson, a satellite designer who must work to save the world from destruction after a malfunction on Earth’s International Climate Space Station triggers deadly weather.

Filming the shots set in space meant Gerard had to master wire work, which he admits took a toll on his body after several takes.

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“It actually takes a bit of work to pull that off and make it convincing and then give a performance on top of doing something that feels so effortless and natural when it’s actually not,” he told Den of Geek U.K. of pretending to be weightless. “When you’re hanging on a wire and you’re really trying to hold your weight up, because you have one wire from your midriff and it’s all about making the rest of your body feel like it’s on a level and you’ve just lost gravity and you’re gently floating up and you’re thinking (in a relaxed tone), ‘Oh, what’s going on?’ when really you’re going (strained), ‘Hold your stomach together! Oh my god, it’s the fifth time I’ve done this, my pecs aren’t working!'”

Luckily there were astronauts on hand to help him and in the end, he learned how to cope with the exertion of it.

The movie, directed, produced and co-written by Dean Devlin, began principal photography back in October 2014. However, after negative test screenings the crew and cast, also featuring Jim Sturgess and Abbie Cornish, re-shot a lot of footage two years later, with a total budget of over $120 million.

But this weekend’s (21-22Oct17) poor domestic opening of just $13.3 million doesn’t even cover the costs to film the reshoots, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It’s hoped the film will do better overseas to avoid losses for co-investors Warner Bros., RatPac, and Skydance.

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