The filmmakers’ dedication to verisimilitude was carried over into every aspect of the production, including the spot-on re-creation of the poker room at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino, which had been completely redecorated since 2003 when the story takes place.

The initial intention had been to shoot in the actual poker rooms, but the Bellagio’s renovation made that impossible. Instead, the decision was made to build an exact replica of the Bellagio poker room, circa 2003, on a soundstage in Los Angeles. As it turned out, the timing of the Bellagio refurbishment could not have been more serendipitous. Production designer Clay A. Griffith reveals, “The hotel was auctioning off all the old murals, carpeting and furniture, so we just outbid everyone. The chandeliers, the drapes, the sconces—we got it all, which was fantastic because it was a very intricate set to build; there is so much latticework and detail, even on the ceiling. The Bellagio was also very cooperative. They even supplied copies of the original floor plans.”

Curtis Hanson directs Doyle Brunson in a scene at Binion’s Casino in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Village Roadshow Pictures’ “Lucky You.” The film stars Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore and Robert Duvall. Photo: Merie W. Wallace

The result was an uncanny re-creation of the Bellagio’s original poker room, as those who knew best testify. “It blew me away,” says poker professional Daniel Negreanu. “It was surreal; it was the exact same Bellagio poker room that I remember. There was nothing at all different about it.”

Fellow pro Erick Lindgren agrees. “I was almost scared when I walked in and saw the Bellagio set. It was like traveling back in time.”

The pros had a similar reaction to Griffith’s duplication of the famous “Benny’s Bullpen,” the upstairs multi-purpose room at Binion’s Gambling Hall, where the final table of the WSOP Main Event was played in 2003. Matt Savage recalls, “I got chills walking into that room in L.A. and seeing how realistic it looked. They did an amazing job.”

Griffith and his team could take particular pride in the observations of the one man whose opinion arguably mattered most: Jack Binion. “I couldn’t believe the attention to detail to make everything so accurate,” he remarks. “It was just great.”

Remembering the humble beginnings of what is now the WSOP, Binion says no one could have predicted that Hollywood would someday come calling. “We weren’t even thinking of it as a poker tournament; it was more of a poker ‘get together.’ We started out with maybe 50 or 60 people, and it came down to a kind of consensus of opinion of who was the best poker player there. We never dreamed it would become this popular. I think the two things that really made the change were the hole card cam and the internet poker sites. It’s just exploded, especially in the last few years.”

Hanson verifies, “There were 631 players in the 2002 World Series of Poker. By 2006, that number had mushroomed to more than 8,000. Veteran players now find themselves going up against players who cut their teeth staring at avatars on a screen. I think that’s part of the enormous appeal of the game today. Unless you’re deluded, you don’t really think you could go one-on-one with Allen Iverson on the basketball court or compete against Tiger Woods on the golf course. But in poker, you can play against the best, and, with a little luck, you can even win.”

Apart from the replication of the Bellagio poker room and Benny’s Bullpen, most of the principal photography on “Lucky You” was accomplished on location in Las Vegas, where, Denise Di Novi says, “Curtis wanted to show the Las Vegas that we haven’t often seen on film—not the glitzy Vegas, but the diners and the shops and the neighborhoods where the people that live and work there hang out. Las Vegas exists in two parallel worlds: the modern tourist attraction Vegas and the old historic Vegas, which is more authentic.”

Griffith confirms, “We wanted to show Las Vegas from different points of view, to combine classic and contemporary settings in terms of what was left of the old Vegas versus the new Vegas, where things are changing by the minute. That actually made scouting a challenge. There were places I found in November—like little restaurants that had been around since the ‘50s—that were suddenly gone when I went back in January.”

“Sadly, I think Las Vegas is the quintessential example of our culture’s failure to value what is authentic and historic and to instead favor a newer simulated version of the original,” Fenelon comments. “Places that reflect the period in which they were built are being torn down everywhere in our country, but Las Vegas is perhaps the most extreme example of it. The Strip is an amalgamation of architectural make-believe.”

Filming in Las Vegas also took place at the Aladdin Casino, the Polo Lounge, and in the actual poker pit at Binion’s, as well as at the Bear’s Best Golf Course, designed by the great Jack Nicholas, where each hole is a replica of a hole that exists on another famous golf course. Going behind the scenes at the Bellagio, Hanson shot Huck’s arrival on a motorcycle in a work area underneath the casino that is off-limits to tourists and then followed him through a labyrinth of corridors and hidden stairways to a door where he literally pops out next to the stage of the popular Fontana Lounge on the casino floor.

Hanson notes, “One of the things I love is having the opportunity to go into a world other than my own—submerging myself in that world, learning as much as I can about it and then selectively using what I’ve learnt in the telling of a story. That was very much the case with the world of high-stakes, professional poker portrayed in ‘Lucky You.’ The balancing act, if you will, was to try and show it in such a way that the people who really know it would feel it was a true representation of their world, and at the same time, to tell a story that’s entertaining and maybe even enlightening to the rest of the audience.”

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NO BAD BEATS
For the filmmakers, music was another integral element in capturing the time, place and emotions of the story. Fenelon relates, 'One of the first things we think about is the music.