Even after the apocalypse, you've gotta have your priorities. Wandering across the dry and desolate landscape and protecting a book that could be the key to humanity's survival, Eli (Denzel Washington) comes to a fork in the road and decides to venture into a town run by Carnegie (Gary Oldman) to fill up his canteen and ... to recharge his iPod. And thus his troubles begin in earnest in the futuristic Western The Book of Eli.
To go along with this plot tidbit, USA Today has some stills from the movie, including a picture of Denzel at that portentous fork in the road, and some interesting details about the conditions under which the filming took place.
With its freezing temperatures, and unpredictable storms of snow and dust, the location in the New Mexico desert where the film is shot feels almost too apocalyptic, the paper suggests. But when you really are shooting the end of the world, it might be just right, adds co-director Albert Hughes. At one point, he says, the harsh terrain even seemed to come to the aid of filmmakers:
We had one scene where Denzel had to kill off one of his enemies.... Right after he kills the guy, a little dust storm picks up and blows right over them. It was eerie. We're going to have people thinking an effect was computer-generated, when really it was just from shooting out here.