Stage23 VFX helps Amazon’s The Bluff to #1 on Prime Video Worldwide
Amazon Studios and AGBO’s 19thcentury femmepirate action thriller The Bluff debuted at
number one worldwide on Prime Video in its first week of release.
Directed by Frank E. Flowers, the coproduction also features Cinestar Pictures and Rocket
Science and stars Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Karl Urban, alongside Ismael Cruz Córdova,
Safia OakleyGreen and Vedanten Naidoo. Chopra Jonas leads as a retired pirate whose
personal security and family life are threatened when envoys from her past return with fury.
Stage23 recreated and enhanced elaborate piratecave interiors, including pyrotechnic beats
and detailed fightsequence injury work, while ensuring Queensland’s vistas played
seamlessly as the Caribbean.
Stage23’s VFX underpin some of the film’s biggest buccaneer set pieces. In one standout
sequence, an invading rogue pirate army triggers a well-based trap that erupts into a
gold-laden explosion—an effects-driven moment built to heighten tension and scale as
“Bloody Mary” escapes into the bluff’s intricate cave system.
Stage23’s visual effects power some of the more brutal and spectacular buccaneer
sequences. As the invading rogue pirate army attempts a home invasion, Chopra Jones’s
moniker of “Bloody Mary” maintains its reputation as she escapes to the intricate bluff cave
system which is rigged with explosives and where she has hidden weapons, goods and the
coveted chests of gold. As the invading pirates secure a chest laden with gold bars and
hidden explosives via a well, it sets off an explosion all created by effects.
For a pivotal highconcept sequence, Stage23 brought the underground lair to life with CG
bat work and a coordinated series of triggered traps—integrating explosions and fire
throughout the caves to support the story’s escalating stakes.
Stage23’s team worked closely with VFX Supervisor James McQuaide to deliver effects that
are both overt (action beats) and invisible (environment and scene enhancements). As
director Frank E. Flowers put it: “every flame, explosion and wonderfully tasteful bit of
brutality.”
Congratulations to the cast and crew on a huge global debut—and to our Stage23 artists
and production team for delivering highend VFX for audiences worldwide.
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