Robert Downey Jr. gave Gerard Butler a pep talk ahead of ‘Den Of Thieves 2’

“I threw away a lot more in this movie and trusted it,” Gerard Butler explains as we discuss the action sequel Den of Thieves 2: Pantera in a suite at London West Hollywood. “I had a conversation with Robert Downey Jr. right before I did this because I was doing some stuff. He said, ‘Dude, you just show up. Throw it away. Who cares? You’re there .’ It took the weight off my shoulders and I went in.”

“As an actor, you always want to say, ‘I really want this to work,’ but there was a part of me that’s like, ‘Trust it. Just go and have fun. Figure it out, while you’re walking’. and I kind of did. It was a fun experiment for Big Nick and works well in the movie.

The 2018s Cave of Thievesthe first film in what is now a franchise grossed $80.5 million against a $30 million budget when it hit theaters in January 2018. Despite receiving mixed reviews, the film has continued to gain a strong following in the intervening years.

“Some people say the level of following has been surprising, but I’ve always believed in our film,” admits the Scottish actor, who is also one of the producers. “I was very proud of Cave of Thievesbut it’s been amazing how it connected with people. This kind of movie will never be for everyone, but it is for a lot of people. What I loved is that a lot of the people who dug it really dug it. It developed a fanatical base, and I think that’s because they don’t make movies like this anymore.”

Why it took seven years to deliver a ‘Den Of Thieves’ sequel

Den of Thieves 2: Pantera picks up right after the events of the first film. Butler returns as “Big Nick” O’Brien, who is hot on the tail of Donnie Wilson, again played by actor-producer O’Shea Jackson, who has fled to Europe and plans another heist. With stacks of thrilling set pieces and hints of 70s thrillers, it’s the kind of cat-and-mouse action flick that Hollywood doesn’t make a lot of these days. Why is that?

“I don’t have an answer to that because I’m one of those people who still makes them,” Butler shrugs. “I love these kinds of movies. I think movies change and morph, for better or worse, and a lot of movies that survive in theaters now are blockbusters or especially small art house movies, and often the middle of the budget range doesn’t have When you see the movies that they put out i understand why they don’t make movies like this now they used to make them much better when you get the rare bird Cave of Thieves is, I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved.” Den of Thieves 2: Pantera lands in theaters on Friday, January 10, 2025.

Seven years have passed in between Cave of Thieves. With a loyal audience ready and hungry for content, what took so long?

“People have commented on the time it took to make this, and maybe it shouldn’t have taken quite as long,” laughs Butler. “There was money, planning, and, frankly, getting the script right. The first film was very specific in its narrative. We thought about how we could take it to the next level and follow the twists and turns and surprises, but not to lose the intelligence of it all. We wanted to give it a new style and tone and take it to Europe. You still get a lot of the dark European vibes, but you also get the opulent, sexy side of Europe, and that gave us one a lot of opportunities to make the movie look amazing, and that’s why I think this really works in theaters.”

How ‘Den Of Thieves 2’ Remembers The Franchise’s LA Roots

Along with Butler and Jackson Jr. writer-director Christian Gudegast returns for Den of Thieves 2: Pantera. Although the action has shifted to Europe, parts of the film are still rooted in LA, with hyperlocal references that tickle fans but can sometimes be too hyperlocal.

“Hofbrau and the Hawaiian takeaway place that I forget the name of right now, even down the streets they’re on that are mentioned, are all real places in LA. Christian is so sickly specific in his work and sometimes you have to back off,” Butler says with a laugh. An audience might miss some of that, and sometimes you have to say, ‘Let’s make it more cinematic.’ What you get out of it is such an involved story. There is an intensity and a grounding because he bases as much as possible on the truth and gets into things. I’ve never seen a director or a writer that I’ve worked with go into something even a tenth as much as Christian does in his research and that attention to detail.”

“We really pushed it to the limit with this one across the board, and there’s a lot of stuff in there. I feel like this movie has such an epic feel right from the start, with Nick in LA and Donnie starting with the first heist that sets the second one up, all the way through to where we get to the end, and even the tie-in stuff that goes through with the mafia, there’s so much going on that at the end I’m like, ‘Wow, that was really an adventure.’

Gerard Butler wanted the action sequences to be as real as possible

While Den of Thieves 2: Pantera Based on the 2003 Antwerp diamond heist, the purpose of the film was an exercise in guerilla filmmaking, and it pushed the cast and crew to their limits.

“In the heist itself, from the time we walked into that building until we left, I think we shot it over three or four nights. It was so hot. Those costumes were neoprene; you could barely breathe in them because it was in the Canary Islands. Islands in the summer and we go into small rooms without air conditioning,” Butler, also known for Olympus has fallen and Greenlandremember “We’d film and then we’d go over and over and then we’d go on to the next bit and the next bit. We tried to film as much as we could, as fast as we could, and it was quite of making it feel as real as possible, so we were in it, we didn’t have time to think about it or make it special.”

“It was like, ‘We’re going, we’re going to get through this.’ We are moving. We’re in this shit. We are in the elevator shaft. Oh my god, how do we get to the next place How do we move as a group?’ It was very involved and very physical and it was exhausting. When you see it, you say, ‘Yes, it works.’ It had to be like that to make it so exciting.'”

He continues passionately: “With both that robbery and the car chase, we were flying by the seat of our pants. With the car chase at the end, which I think is so exciting, it was a big thing for me to say, ‘when we’re in it here, if everyone commits, let’s do it as violently as possible. When a bullet hits that car, it’s loud, it’s crazy, it’s violent, and you. If we all get that, then we have what we need between the conventional effects that are in there and the effects that they put in afterwards. When you see that car chase, it’s incredibly intense was really proud of how it came out, but we flew through it to get it done. Even though we did, there was something raw, unapologetic, and it was very clever. but there was also a great amount of tension between the really fun characters. Big Nick is the most fun I’ve ever had with a character because you don’t know what he is, what he’s going to do.

Gerard Butler never saw his hit franchises coming

With Den of Thieves 2: Pantera leaving the door wide open for a third film and then, it wasn’t 300 and Geostorm plane of the star. Obviously it never is.

“I don’t think I’ve ever picked a movie and thought it was going to be another movie or a trilogy. It just started happening. I have a lot of franchises, but that was never the plan,” Butler shrugs. “With Cave of Thieveswe announced the second movie almost the same day the first movie came out; I was kind of like, ‘Oh, really? Now I’m super glad we did. I didn’t expect there to be a second Greenland. I didn’t expect more films when I was making Olympus has fallen. I had no thought that it would move into another film and beyond. It was just, ‘God, let’s make this work. Let’s make this a good movie.’ It was that simple. However, I seem to have become Mr. Franchise at the moment, and certainly on the independent circuit, although one of them is How to train your dragonwhich is clearly at the student level.”

He concludes, “I remember when we started and people said, ‘You’ve got to get a franchise. The franchise is everything,’ and I thought, ‘Really?’ I thought, ‘Nobody’s ever going to do a franchise with me, I’d be lucky to get a movie, let alone a franchise.’ Now I’m thinking, ‘What are we turning this into a franchise too?’ I didn’t expect it to be like that, but it was really fun, I don’t do TV, so you don’t get the chance to do an episode, come back, spend time with a character, then do this and. Playing Big Nick and getting to play him a second time and still really climb into other parts is amazing.”