York D.A. Remy Auberjonois as Sam Purvitz Ian Burfield as Thomas Schumer Ben Whishaw as Rene Antall Production The screenplay was written by Eric Warren Singer after he developed an interest in the banking scandals from the 1980s and 90s. He was looking for "a paranoid thriller vibe" from that period; "The Godfather III was really the only film up to this point that dealt with the banking scandals, because it was really gangster warfare on a corporate level, and I thought that was the best part of the film." Later reviewers compared it directly to The Parallax View (1974) and All The President's Men (1976). A year later Tom Tykwer got involved through his agent, but decided a contemporary setting would work better. In April 2007, Clive Owen agreed to perform in The International. He said the script interested him because he was reminded of "those '70s paranoia pictures" and because it combined a factual, intelligent basis with an international thriller plot. The following July, actress Naomi Watts was cast opposite Owen. In August, the film received US$5.4 million from the toward its budget. The following month its funding increased to $7.9 million, based on the board's assessment that two-thirds of The International would be produced in Germany and that a number of Germans were in important roles, such as actors Armin Mueller-Stahl and Axel Milberg, cinematographer Frank Griebe, and production designer Uli Hanisch. Filming began in Berlin on 10 September 2007. Part of the production took place in Babelsberg Studios. Clive Owen called the shoot-out scene "one of the most exquisitely executed sequences I've been involved in". Tom Tykwer planned the scene in detail and toured the museum with the principals months in advance. The lobby entrance scene was filmed in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, but for the shooting sequences a wide, life-size replica, including an audio visual exhibition with works of Julian Rosefeldt, was built in Germany. This set was too large for the studio, so it was instead built in a disused locomotive warehouse outside Berlin; its construction took ten weeks. Having filmed in the real museum interior and on the sound stage in Germany, the film crew had to track the lights and camera angles carefully throughout to ensure continuity. The scene includes a sequence in which the protagonist sends a huge art-chandelier hanging from the ceiling crashing to the ground;