“Allowed us to interrogate”: Havoc’s director on the four years that took the Tom Hardy starrer to be released

Gareth Evans can finally present Havoc, his latest action-thriller, to the world, thanks to its release on Netflix. He brings another violent chapter set in the gritty world of crooks and criminals. However, it could have arrived much sooner, at least three years ago. It reportedly wrapped up its production in October 2021. Considering the time of post-production, it could have seen the light of day at least a year later. Yet, while editing, Evans realized that they needed to shoot a few scenes to flesh out some of its character arcs.

In an interview with Film Stories UK, Evans shed light on the same topic:

“We wrapped the film in October 2021 and then we delivered an edit and we all felt, collectively, ‘Okay, this needs maybe a week’s worth of work to be done.’ Just to kind of iron out some story threads that needed a little bit more clarity here and there.”

However, there were a few issues to get that reshoot done.

Havoc's director Gareth Evans reveals the process of reshoots that was stuck in limbo

Sources say that Havoc was initially shot in Cardiff, Wales, and it was challenging to bring its cast members back there at the same time. The Hollywood artists' strikes made it take even longer. During the interview, Gareth Evans revealed,

“We ended up in a situation where getting the ensemble cast back together again, in the same place for the same week, proved incredibly difficult. And so we were struggling to get everyone’s schedules to line up. And then just as we were about to figure that out, we got hit by the WGA strike and the SAG strike. And so everyone kind of stood down for seven or eight months. Then any projects that were going on before that got given priority to finish and complete.”

However, Evans decided to utilize this time in the film's favor, which had its reshoots reportedly done in 2024.

“I’ve never experienced the post-production that has expanded that long before, but what it did was, it allowed us to interrogate the film and really try things out, experiment with the cut, experiment with the edit. And then see what we really needed. You know what I mean? So that when we did finally get to do these sort of additional photography, it was super focused on only the bits that we felt we needed.”

So, during the nearly three years it took to get the reshoots done, Evans worked on the script to ensure that they would get what they needed in the time they had. It's not clear what parts of the film were shot during this period. However, based on his comments, it seems like he was creatively satisfied with his final output.

Tom Hardy reflects on the difficult stunt scenes in Havoc

Havoc, starring Tom Hardy, took nearly four years to get released, but it was a challenging shoot also for other reasons. In an interview with RadioTimes.com, Hardy highlighted the same.

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"The Medusa fight scene was hot. I was wearing a thermal and a shirt, a wool shirt and a T-shirt. And it was summer. Like, after the first 10 minutes of throwing my arms around, I was like, 'I'm not gonna make this. I'm not gonna make the day, Gareth. I think I need to cut the sleeves off this!'—In the end, I just had the shirt bolero with two buttons, and then the Patagonia fleece over the top of it, and then an ice pack at the back. And then we were good to go! But until that point, I was struggling."

Havoc is available to stream on Netflix.

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