'Zero Dark Thirty': Osama Bin Laden's Compound Was Re-Created For New Film (VIDEO)

Re-Creating Osama Bin Laden's Compound For 'Zero Dark Thirty'

"Zero Dark Thirty" received Oscar nominations on Thursday for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay (by Mark Boal), Best Actress (Jessica Chastain), Best Editing and Best Sound Editing, but the film failed to earn a nod for Best Production Design. That's a curious snub, especially when considering the painstaking detail that Team "Zero Dark Thirty" put into re-creating Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound for the new film.

Out nationwide now, "Zero Dark Thirty" tells the decade-long story of the hunt for bin Laden. As with real life, the story's final act takes place in Abbottabad and shows how Navy SEALs infiltrated the fortified house in an affluent part of Pakistan.

"What we started with was this goal to make Osama bin Laden's house, and the whole film, as accurate as possible," Boal says in a new, behind-the-scenes look at the film, debuting exclusively on HuffPost Entertainment and Moviefone. "To build the house we began with whatever open source material there was. We found a plot of land in Jordan that has a very similar flora and fauna vegetation to what we found in Abbottabad."

Watch how the compound was built in the video above. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, "Zero Dark Thirty" is out in theaters now.

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Oscar Nominees 2013

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