A movie for Japanese TV recounting the events of the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo will be filmed on location in southern New Zealand. Tokyo Olympics ’64 is being made partly to promote the upcoming 2020 Olympic Games, which sees a return to the Japanese capital.
Michael Bay’s new action movie Transformers: Age of Extinction spotlights Hong Kong filming locations with an epic finale set against the backdrop of the city. The movie spent several weeks in Hong Kong and on the Chinese mainland, but also built a sprawling set in Detroit.
The BBC’s adaptation of JK Rowling’s 2012 novel The Casual Vacancy starts filming today on location in Stroud, near Bristol in south-west England. Produced by Bronte Film and Television and in association with HBO, the story traces tensions in a fictional market village in rural England.
China and South Korea have signed a co-production filming deal. The agreement will enable Korean movies made as official Chinese co-productions to bypass China’s strict quota on the number of international films that can be released each year.
An executive at Marvel Studios has warned of the issue of crew shortages for location shoots in Georgia. David Grant is Vice President of Physical Production for Marvel and is overseeing work in Atlanta on Ant-Man. The state is also home to long-running zombie drama The Walking Dead.
Cable channel HBO will film part of the fifth season of Game of Thrones on location in the Seville region of southern Spain. The show has been based in Northern Ireland throughout its four-season run, with additional location filming focussing on Iceland and Croatia.
The California Film Commission has announced initial filming incentive approval for 26 productions for the next year. Eleven features and 13 TV series are among those selected for the state’s 20% tax credit, including one show – Being Mary Jane – that’s relocating from Georgia.
The Czech Republic has increased the fund for its filming incentive in a move that could help attract more productions on the scale of the BBC’s The Musketeers. Prague launched the 20% filming incentive in 2010 and the fund has been increased to the equivalent of USD40 million for this year.