The news that some of the new sequels of “Game of Thrones” will be shot again in Croatia has resonated these days, but they are not the only filmmakers who are choosing Croatia filming locations this year. At the end of April, photographers spotted Oscar winner Rami Malek (39) and his girlfriend Lucy Boynton (27) on the terrace of the Esplanade Hotel in Zagreb, sipping their morning coffee carefree. Although at first it was thought that the couple came to Croatia only for a short break in the pandemic, it turned out that Boynton was part of the camera crew of the British crime series “The Ipcress File” which turned Zagreb into Berlin during the Cold War. Tomislavac was so full of old-timers and old trucks, the Archaeological Museum became a British consulate, and a set of cafes was built in front of the Art Pavilion. The screenplay is based on Len Deighton’s 1962 bestseller of the same name, and was written by award-winning screenwriter John Hodge.
After filming in Liverpool, the team went to Croatia, and in addition to Zagreb, they will also film in Split, Rijeka and Opatija. The mini-series is being filmed by Altitude Television and ITV Studios, and after two months of filming in Liverpool, the team has moved to the Croatian capital, where it will film until mid-June. The news that a movie production croatia is filming the series in Croatia is not strange, since domestic locations, from the sea to the metropolis and beyond, are in great demand in the world.
One of today’s most famous actors, Oscar winner Nicolas Cage (57) visited Dubrovnik in October last year, where he shot his new film “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” directed by Tom Gormican for 15 days, together with his colleague Pedro Pascal (45). In this film, Cage plays a fictional version of himself and, according to the script, desperately wants a role in Quentin Tarantino’s film. In the film, Cage also deals with the selfish Cage from the early 90s, whom he accuses of being guilty of a whole series of bad films he made, which brought him to the B-list of popularity, but also to the brink of bankruptcy. The larger film crew was housed at the Argentina Hotel, and they filmed at Villa Scheherazade, where Cage himself stayed. The service production company is the Embassy Studio from Dubrovnik, produced by Erika Milutin Diller (Embassy Films). The film was supposed to hit theaters in March, but the coronavirus pandemic seems to have slowed plans a bit nonetheless. At a time when the world has almost stopped, the production, which brought a total of 412 film workers to Croatia, of which 97 Croatian citizens and about 300 other Croatian citizens as extras, really did a lot for the Croatian economy, tourism and culture.
Another famous production stayed with us last year. Hollywood entrepreneur Larry Namer is best known to the audience for being the author of the series “Santa Barbara” and the founder of the TV channel E! Entertainment, which spawned one of the most famous reality shows “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” and won an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement. He is the executive producer of the documentary series “Explore Croatia”, which showed Croatia in two episodes. It was filmed in January last year, when Larry spent a few weeks in Zagreb, while the rest of the team arrived gradually over the course of the month. The series is part of the “Explore the World” series, which consists of 12 episodes, and the American production company Metan Global Entertainment is doing it for the Chinese television platform Youku and Mango TV. The local producer is Ana Muhar Blanquart, a Croatian correspondent from London who once explained the series to us. Host Alice Rehemutula will travel to Croatia, where famous Croats such as Ivana Vrdoljak Vanna, Ćiro Blažević and Davor Bruketa will take her to locations such as Zagreb, Hvar, Istria and Lošinj. On Wednesday, the popular Croatian singer Vanna, one of their housewives in Zagreb, took them to Dolac, to the Kobali hat shop, Vincek confectionery, and at the Canopy by Hilton hotel she also prepared sarma that was later eaten by people from China, Croatia, USA. and Pakistan. But that was not the end of Zagreb’s adventures.
Not even a year before that, Hollywood productions did not bypass movie production Croatia. Mexican-American beauty Salma Hayek (57) made two films in 2019 in our region. At the beginning of April that year, the stars of the action thriller-comedy “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” arrived in Rovinj – Salma Hayek, Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds, who were accommodated in the most luxurious Rovinj hotels – Lone, Monte Mulini, but also in the open. the most luxurious hotel on the Adriatic – Grand Hotel Park. After a week of filming in Rovinj, which allegedly played the Italian Amalfi Coast, the team also filmed in Rijeka, Karlovac and Zagreb, where shots were taken on the roof of a public garage behind the Panorama Hotel in Čazmanska Street over several nights. The croatian production company team stayed in Croatia until the end of May, although Hayek briefly left Croatia during the filming due to the Met Gala awards. During the filming, the famous actors repeatedly advertised about Croatia on their social networks, and did not hide their enthusiasm for Istria and Rijeka, as well as Zagreb, so they shared photos on their profiles, such as Salma Hayek who shared a joint photo with Samuel L. Jackson on Croatian coast. The premiere of the film is scheduled for June 16 this year, and the trailer for the same film delighted audiences last month.
Less than two months have passed since the shooting of the last scene in July 2019, and Salma Hayek stepped on Croatian soil for the second time that year, for another film. This time it was a sci-fi drama “Bliss”, in which Hayek, along with his colleague Owen Wilson, is the main star. Wilson plays Greg, a recently divorced man whose life changes when he meets poor Isabel played by Salma, who lives on the street and believes the world we live in is not real. Along with Wilson and Hayek, the film also stars Nesta Cooper, Madaline Zima and Jorge Lendeborg Jr., and is written and directed by Mike Cahill. Amazon Studios is a production company, and Pakt Media took care of local production in Croatia. When the official trailer came out in January this year, the Croatian public was delighted with the footage from the Split waterfront, Prokurative, Meštrović Gallery, Vidilice in the Marjan Forest Park and the Dubrovnik archipelago. A month later, in February, the film premiered.
Popular musical “Mamma Mia! 2 ”was also filmed on Croatian locations, on the divine Vis, which jumped in as a faithful sight of the Greek coast. The production companies Playton, Legendary Entertainment and Perfect World Pictured brought the biggest Hollywood stars to Croatia – Meryl Streep, Lily James, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, singer Cher, Christine Baranski, Andy Garcia, Julie Walters and a dozen others. In addition to the already mentioned famous actors, the film also brought together young actors who play their characters in their youth. The director of the film, Ol Parker, is delighted with the experience of filming on Vis and other Croatian islands. – We decided after seeing a lot of places where we can shoot, we visited several islands, but very quickly we decided for Croatia. Then a dilemma arose – which island? We watched Hvar for a long time, thought about it, but there is something romantic about going to one island and filming everything there, because there were a lot of us on a small island from which we did not leave for more than a month. That was special. It was a simple decision – Parker once said. The film was shot with the help of the Croatian Audiovisual Center, and in July 2018 it had its Croatian vice-premiere in the Arena at the 65th Pula Film Festival.