How do you produce a motorcycle that wouldn't look out of place in a movie about a post-apocalyptic earth?

That was the problem facing director Joseph Kosinski as he prepared for the Tom Cruise thriller Oblivion.

Luckily for moviegoers across the country, Kosinski was able to score one of the most respected motorcycle men in Hollywood to lend him a hand. Justin Kell, owner of Glory Motor Works, has built motorcycles for several high profile movies, including Gangster Squad and G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

For Oblivion, which is set in the year 2077, Kell transformed a dirt bike into a futuristic motorcycle.

"The bike stuff we got to do was fun," Kell told the Los Angeles Times. "We don't get called in when a bike has to sit on a static set and look cool. We get called in when it has to jump 50 feet on top of a volcano in Iceland. Tom [Cruise] is an experienced enough rider and good enough that he knows exactly what he wants."

But there was more to the production than simply creating a cool-looking bike.

"It's not just the look of it," Cruise said recently, "it had to be safe enough for me to travel at very high speeds."

Cruise and Kosinski loved the final product, and it truly fits in in the movie. But Cruise won't have to wait until 2077 to ride it again. For his 50th birthday, which fell during filming in Iceland, he was presented with one of the bikes from the film.