Industrial processes show up often in the entertainment industry, and metalcasting is no exception.

Peter Jackson provides some good examples in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and most recently in the second installment of The Hobbit—The Desolation of Smaug.  [Warning: spoilers]  It includes a fully fledged foundry in highly animated action, with dragon-lit forges melting untold tons of gold to produce a gigantic cast statue of a dwarf.  As it is being poured, exiled king Thorin Oakenshield rides a wheelbarrow down a rushing canal of molten metal (at 1,948 F or more), proving you can’t make that believable no matter how moody you look while doing it.  

What are your favorite examples of metalcasting in the movies?  Email dkapel@afsinc.org or comment below.