“…and you thought those people that set up roomfuls of dominoes to knock over were amazing. There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in this film. Everything you see really happened in real time exactly as you see it.

The film took 606 takes. On the first 605 takes, something, usually very minor, didn’t work. They would then have to set the whole thing up again. The crew spent weeks shooting night and day. By the time it was over, they were ready to change professions.

The film cost six million dollars and took three months to complete including full engineering of the sequence. In addition, it’s two minutes long so every time Honda airs the film on British television they’re shelling out enough dough to keep any one of us in clover for a lifetime. However, it has fast become the most downloaded advertisement in Internet history.

Honda executives figure the ad paid for itself simply in “free viewings” (Honda isn’t paying a dime to have you watch this commercial!).