The continuing success of the BBC’s modern-day detective series Sherlock could help boost film tourism in London. Nearly ten million UK viewers watched the opening third-series episode broadcast on 1 January 2014 and the series starts in the US later this month.
Action star Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson will film big-budget disaster movie San Andreas on location in Queensland, doubling the Australian state for California. Johnson will play a helicopter pilot searching for his daughter in the aftermath of an earthquake that devastates the Pacific Coast.
New TV series Tyrant will film on location in Tel Aviv and comes from the producers of terrorism drama Homeland. The series will focus on the son of a Middle-Eastern dictator who becomes embroiled in regional politics when he returns home with his US family after years in exile.
New feature The Dead Lands is filming on location in and around Auckland, New Zealand, as a New Zealand-UK co-production. Described as a “Maori action epic”, the film will chart a revenge story and will showcase the Maori martial art known as Mau Rakau.
Cambodia and France have signed a filming co-production agreement that will make it easier for filmmakers in both countries to become partners on international shoots. France already has several similar agreements in place with several Asian countries including Japan, India and China.
New supernatural TV drama series Dominion is to start filming on location in South Africa. Based on the 2010 sci-fi horror Legion, the series will be set in a dystopian city – formerly Las Vegas – and chart a conflict between warring angels.
British comedian and actor Eddie Izzard filmed on location in and around Edinburgh for the BBC’s new factual drama Castles In The Sky. The production tells the story of Scotsman Robert Watson-Watt and his struggle to invent RADAR technology in the build-up to World War II.
New TV drama Turn is set during the American Revolutionary War of the mid-18th Century and is doubling locations in Virginia for colonial-era New York. This tumultuous period of American history is drawing Hollywood’s eye, with Last of the Mohicans also being developed into a miniseries.