Spending freely to give the thrill of a chase — on water

A complex boat chase in “Sahara” features Matthew McConaughey doing his best James Bond impression. He performs daredevil maneuvers, dodges machine gun bullets and leaps out of a fast-moving craft seconds before it erupts in a fiery explosion.

The water sequence lasts only seven minutes, but it didn’t come cheap. It was filmed at two locations in Morocco and one in Spain. Producers paid $915,435 for two high-powered boats and $548,162 for two gunboats. They paid $131,950 to build the shell of another vessel that would be blown up on screen. The four boats were later resold for $803,049. The producers also transported military watercraft from Britain and rented a helicopter at a cost of $28,314 a week to capture aerial footage.

Much of the movie’s weaponry — the “Sahara” budget allocated $288,285 for boat guns, automatic weapons, grenade launchers and 44,000 rounds of ammunition was used in the chase scene.

Advance production personnel, a marine unit and stunt players needed several weeks to choreograph the chase. The scene took a cast and crew of several hundred three weeks to shoot. Fifteen camera and sound workers squeezed onto the speedboat carrying McConaughey.

One of the boats ran over and destroyed an expensive camera lens, which was replaced by the movie’s insurance carrier.