Lake Macquarie News have posted some more images of the X-men Origins shoot that took place on Blacksmith’s Beach, showing the mock up WW2 scenes, Hugh Jackman, safety inspectors and soldiers running in the sand.

SHH have posted a set report from the Omaha beach scenes, simulating the 1944 D-day landings. This is a great read that shows the true effort and grit (or sand?) that goes into shooting a realistic war scene.

I was a part of the WWII, Omaha Beach scenes. From what I can gather, Logan (aka Wolverine) is pretty much the Eternal Soldier archetype. By this I mean he is by nature a warrior and is drawn to wars and conflict. The D-Day landings at Omaha Beach are iconic in American military history. It makes perfect sense from the character story to have this landing as a setting for some of his history.

About 70 extras were hired on for the shooting of the beach landing scenes (plus stunt guys plus stars). These extras were a mix of normal extras and trained army personnel. I fall into the latter category being a member of the Australian Army Reserve. The casting directors wanted to leaven the bread of actors with some real-life soldiers in order to give the scenes a little bit of added realism. I think it worked well.

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Looks like IESB’s report that filming had wrapped was a little premature, just yesterday the X-men Origins production team were simulating war scenes at Blacksmiths Beach. A group of Flickr photographers in the area gathered to take their shots and meet Hugh Jackman. From the pictures it looks like WWII will feature, though it’s unclear how much the movie shall focus on this aspect of Wolverine’s past.

Panoramic by Father McKenzie

More pictures by Naomi Frost

Picture by subgirljess099

From Wikipedia - Wolverine’s brief history, to fill some people in:

During World War II, Logan teams with Captain America versus HYDRA [Captain America cameo!?], and continues a career as a soldier-of-fortune/adventurer. Logan works for the First Canadian Parachute Battalion and the CIA before being recruited for Team X.

As a member of Team X, Logan is given false memory implants. He continues on the team, until he is able to break free of the mental control and joins the Canadian Defense Ministry. Logan is subsequently kidnapped by Weapon X, where he remains captive and experimented on, until his rescue by the Winter Soldier, after which he returns to the Canadian wilderness.

The IESB are reporting that principal photography has wrapped in Australia. How long until we see our first teaser trailer?

Marvel’s Kevin Feige told IESB that X-Men Origins: Wolverine has just wrapped principal photography in Australia and that there are only a couple of weeks left for some pick up shots second unit will be taking care of.

Several sources close to the production have described X-Men Origins: Wolverine as a gritty 70’s type of action film.