Since releasing a few weeks ago Melissa McCarthy’s Thunder Force has made headlines for the comedic chops of its all star cast, wild sex scenes and a particularly disgusting ending. After saving the residents of Chicago, McCarthy's character shares a plate of what appears to be raw chicken in an intimate celebration with Jason Bateman's The Crab. It’s particularly nasty due to just how realistic the raw chicken looks, and apparently the crew had one hell of a time finding the perfect supplement for actual raw chicken.
In a recent interview Melissa McCarthy revealed the painstaking process of simulating actual raw chicken for the camera. In her own words:
This poor woman had to spend a month and a half just trying to figure out -- first of all just explaining to her why we needed something to look like raw chicken that I was going to consume. At first she made something out of Mung bean that did look good, but it was very tricky to get down. Then another thing, they were like, if we sous vide the chicken, actual chicken breasts, at such a low temperature and over such a long period of time, it is technically cooked but still appears and handles completely raw. To which I said, ‘No thank you.’
She dished the details in an interview with co-star Octavia Spencer on BuzzFeed. Fortunately, McCarthy didn’t end up eating actual raw chicken, as the crew found a surprisingly sweet substitute:
What we actually used in the movie is Asian pears. It was peeled a certain way and there was an enzyme bath and they did all these crazy, all these steps, to get it to break down to look like that. For my character, it was pretty amazing because when they brought that plate over I did not think, ‘Boy look at that plate of pear.’
I mean, on one hand I’m happy they pulled off such a convincing substitute. On the other hand, I can’t imagine it was easy to scarf those things down. The raw chicken bit is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of gonzo comedy found in Thunder Force. At one point there’s a particularly intimate dance number between her character and Jason Bateman's The Crab (who is sporting straight up crab claws as arms), all to the sultry saxophone of Glenn Frey.
While the superhero comedy may not have been as warmly received by critics as it was by fans, there was still plenty to like. A number of viewers were quick to praise it’s diverse representation and Jason Bateman’s half-crab character.
If you haven’t seen it yet, Thunder Force is now streaming on Netflix. While it’s certainly not an MCU flick, the Netflix comedy offers a fun and fresh spin on the superhero genre, even if things get a little zany at times.
