“Most scenes and many entire movies defy the laws of the current universe. When Efthimiou sat down to carry out the calculations from Skyscraper, he was surprised to see the laws of physics do, in fact, allow a window of opportunity.Ī jump like the one in Skyscraper requires a very specific combination of horizontal and vertical speeds, says Efthimiou, whose work on the topic is published in Physics Education. His classes have included studies of well-known scenes from flicks such as Armageddon, X-Men and Black Panther. Efthimiou teaches a popular class, Physics and Film, in which he examines science at work in science fiction, thriller and superhero movies.

UCF Physics Professor Costas Efthimiou had the same question - along with strong initial doubts. After the release of the movie’s trailer earlier this year, skeptics immediately began to question the jump’s feasibility and had everyone asking: Is this humanly possible? In this case, the movie’s director was either lucky or had done his homework.”ĭwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays the hero in the epic leap, and his movie Skyscraper already has the internet talking. The building is ablaze, and his family is trapped in a 240-floor building, above the fire line. In the soon-to-be-released film Skyscraper, a war veteran with a prosthetic leg sprints across the arm of a construction crane, launching himself in a seemingly insane jump toward the broken, open window of an adjacent building.

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