Directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein have revealed that star Ryan Reynolds personally called the Mayor of Budapest to salvage a pivotal scene in their new film "Mayday," after the production lost permission to film in Heroes' Square. The Cold War-era action comedy, released on Apple TV+ on 4 September, had assembled 1,000 extras, 1,000 crew members, custom period uniforms and Soviet tanks to recreate a May Day parade meant to double for Moscow's Red Square, making the last-minute venue withdrawal a potential production crisis. Reynolds' intervention, described by Goldstein as calling in "the 500-pound elephant," underscores how the film relied heavily on the star's connections and long-standing relationship with the directors to get made.

Reynolds stars as a downed American pilot in Russia who is helped home by an ex-KGB operative played by Kenneth Branagh, in his 60s taking on an action lead role for the first time. Daley and Goldstein, previously behind "Game Night" and "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves," conceived the project during post-production on the latter and pitched it to Reynolds' Maximum Effort banner, with Skydance and Apple later backing it. Daley and Reynolds first worked together two decades earlier on 2005's "Waiting," while the directors also convinced Branagh to embrace physical action sequences by preparing thoroughly ahead of the shoot.