Tag: United Kingdom

Posted on in News, Television News

Filming On ‘Lord Of The Rings’ Officially Moves From New Zealand To UK: Production On Season 2 Begins In 2022

Filming on Season 2 of Amazon’s Lord of The Rings series has officially moving from New Zealand to United Kingdom. Amazon Studios claims that it’s part of their commitment to expand their footprint in the United Kingdom, but failed to mention what facility they’ll be using as the homestead stage location.

Below is the official press release:

Amazon Studios announced today that its untitled The Lord of the Rings original series will film Season Two in the United Kingdom (U.K.). The shift from New Zealand to the U.K. aligns with the studio’s strategy of expanding its production footprint and investing in studio space across the U.K., with many of Amazon Studios’ tentpole series and films already calling the U.K. home.

The highly anticipated The Lord of the Rings series recently wrapped principal photography on Season One in New Zealand and is scheduled to premiere on Prime Video in more than 240 countries around the world on Friday, September 2, 2022.

Season One post production will continue in New Zealand through June 2022, and pre-production on Season Two will begin concurrently in the U.K. after the first of the year.

This should be hugely disappointing to fans hoping that Amazon would keep the series in New Zealand for all five seasons.

The new epic drama brings to screens for the very first time J.R.R. Tolkien’s fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. Beginning in a time of relative peace, thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth.

The series is led by showrunners and executive producers J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay. They are joined by executive producers Lindsey Weber, Callum Greene, J.A. Bayona, Belén Atienza, Justin Doble, Jason Cahill, Gennifer Hutchison, Bruce Richmond, and Sharon Tal Yguado. Wayne Che Yip is co-executive producer and directs along with J.A. Bayona and Charlotte Brändström. Christopher Newman is a producer and Ron Ames is a co-producer.

SOURCE: AMAZON

Posted on in Film News

UK Heading Into Second National Lockdown This Week – Will Not Impact Film Productions For The Moment

The British government has announced via Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s national address over the weekend that after weeks of dire COVID-19 predictions for the region they’re finally moving back into a second national lockdown starting on November 5th and lifting it on December 2nd (could be extended if necessary).

JOHNSON: “Unless we act, we could see deaths in this country running at several thousand a day”

For comparison, UK COVID-19 cases have topped 1,000,000 including 47,717 deaths while the United States still hasn’t instituted a national lockdown with 9,280,000 million cases and over 231,000 COVID-19 deaths.

While dine-in bars/restaurants (can do takeout), cinemas, and other non-essentially businesses are closing film productions are expected to chug along like nothing is happening. I’m curious how long that will last if more productions publicly deal with new positive cases after both Jurassic World: Dominion and The Batman dealt with their own recently, the latter seeing star Robert Pattinson test positive for COVID-19.

This was later backed-up by Oliver Dowden, the government’s Culture Secretary on Twitter.

Things like schools, universities, construction sites and manufacturing businesses will stay open. However, that could change if they don’t see a decrease in numbers which might also lead to stricter measures and might lead to everything non-essentially getting closed including film shoots (filming in a bubble or not).

As previously stated, The Batman and Jurassic World: Dominion are filming in the United Kingdom alongside Fantastic Beasts 3. There is an expectation that the Moon Knight series, Ant-Man 3, Captain Marvel 2, and The Flash are prepping to shoot as well in the new year. Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness was supposed to film at Longcross Studios in Surrey, England, however, trades have suggested that lead actor Benedict Cumberbatch is set to shoot his scenes in Atlanta for Spider-Man 3 before filming starts on the Strange sequel.

A lot can happen in a month and it doesn’t seem they’re going all-in with this new lockdown, which might return to bite them in the ass as did the slow response to rising new cases and delayed second lockdown when the government knew months ago that this was only getting worse in the UK. I’m worried these half-steps just won’t be enough and they’ll essentially announce a more rigorous lockdown in a couple weeks or in December, extending it throughout the holidays.

Posted on in Film News

Second Round of Shutdowns In The UK and Elsewhere Could Have A Huge Impact On Hollywood’s Recovery

Movie theaters around the globe are trying to recover from the last couple of months but it looks like they could be closing again in multiple countries sooner than expected. The United Kingdom and Canada are currently seeing spikes of new cases of Coronavirus that has led to new restrictions along with promises from governments that a second national shutdown isn’t off the table if things don’t improve. 

New cases in the United Kingdom could hit as high as 50,000 per day by mid-October, which would be more than the United States is currently seeing as September 20th numbers were 34,586. The UK’s numbers on Monday were reportedly 4,368, a steady increase going the wrong way as the numbers have been doubling every seven days. The idea is to prevent 200+ deaths per day. 

Spain has already instituted restrictions on Madrid just months after European countries eased restrictions back in July. The continent is now seeing rises just like the UK with Spain seeing 31, 428 new cases since Friday. 

France also hit 13,000 new cases on Saturday and 10,569 on Sunday. 

Not the direction you want to see when there are predictions of a massive second wave in the fall and winter. 

The film industry has seemingly shrugged off the lackluster domestic returns thinking that international box office numbers will keep studios afloat. However, if places like the UK, Europe, and Canada shut down theaters again a massive movie like No Time To Die might lose a lot of money and end up hurting Hollywood’s recovery. 

The United Kingdom is also trying bounce-back concerning film production with large studio films such as The Batman, Fantastic Beasts 3, and Mission: Impossible 7-8 said to be currently filming. A shutdown could see those shoots placed on pause again if the government suddenly decides it’s not a good idea while the country is seeing significant COVID-19 spikes. Robert Pattinson had reportedly tested positive for Coronavirus despite the strict safety precautions promoted ahead of the production resuming in London. 

Other projects expected to shoot in the United Kingdom soon include Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness (Longcross Studios), Ant-Man 3 (Pinewood Studios UK), The Flash (Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden), and Marvel’s Moon Knight series. Some of these shoots could see hiccups in the pre-production/prep stages if not massive filming delays if there is a prolonged shutdown. 

Dwayne Johnson and his family tested positive for COVID-19, he’s already back on the set of Netflix’s Red Notice in Atlanta, Georgia. Filming on The Falcon & The Winter Soldier has also resumed in Atlanta as well with expectations that Loki and other shows will begin there soon. 

It seems extremely irresponsible on the part of studios to chug along like nothing is wrong given that the state of Georgia with a population of 3.7 million has more new cases of COVID-19 than the entire country of Canada that has a population of 37.4 million, the latter on the cusp of greenlighting a second shutdown that could see productions in Toronto, Montreal, and even Vancouver stop entirely again. Not to mention, pulling down theater ticket sales as Canadian box office dollars are included in the domestic cumes.  

We’ll have to see the numbers can be turned around without national shutdowns but it doesn’t seem like it can be avoided at this point. 

Posted on in Film News

IRA Thriller ‘Borderland’ To Star John Boyega, Jack Reynor, Felicity Jones, and Jodie Turner-Smith – Shooting Early 2021 In The UK

Deadline reports that an impressive cast has been hired for an upcoming IRA thriller titled Borderland. The group of young talent assembled includes John Boyega (Detroit, Star Wars: The Force Awakens), Jack Reynor (Free Fire, Midsommar), Felicity Jones (Theory of Everything, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), and Jodie Turner-Smith (Without Remorse, Nightflyers). 

Borderland will explore the violent tensions between the unwelcomed British military presence and the IRA in Northern Ireland. 

The film will follow an Irish paramilitary, Michael (Reynor), who witnesses the shooting of his pregnant wife at the hands of an SAS sergeant named Tempest (Boyega) when a border ambush goes wrong. When Tempest is sent back to London to lead a covert counter-terrorist operation, Michael joins a ruthless active service unit (ASU) wreaking havoc in the capital. For Michael, the mission is personal – to hunt down Tempest – and he’ll stop at nothing to avenge his wife’s death.

It will be directed by The Guard Brothers and the pair of siblings co-wrote the script with Ronan Bennett. 

Filming is said to begin on location in the United Kingdom starting sometime in early 2021. 

SOURCE: DEADLINE