The involvement of Timur Bekmambetov as producer afforded the production the opportunity of using Russia as a backdrop instead of the usual USA locations. Bekmambetov owns a film production company in Moscow called Bazelevs where most of the movie was made.
Shot in 3D as opposed to post-conversion.
Production was suspended for a planned two weeks due to the extraordinary air pollution caused by heavy smoke from the wildfires surrounding Moscow in August 2010. It eventually resumed three weeks later. Even with this precaution, smoke still made it into a lot of shots and had to be digitally removed in post-production.
The shoot was 58 days and another eight or nine days were added to the production schedule when it was decided to shoot the film in 3D.
The crew was made up of about 30% Americans and 70% Russians.