 |
| |
Bond 23 will no longer be heading to India, with
location filming moved to South Africa instead...
|
|
India Locations Scrapped
25th September 2011
Plans to shoot scenes for the 23rd
James Bond film on location
in India have been scrapped, according to the local production
company that was to partner with EON Productions in the country.
India Take One Productions confirmed to the Times
of India newspaper this weekend than EON had sent official notice to them on Thursday
(22nd September 2011) that all plans
to film Bond 23 in India had been cancelled. Similar notices went to the various Indian
ministries. "Bond will not be coming to India," Pravesh
Sahni said.
|
It is understood that long delays in securing
vital filming permissions with a myriad of government
and railway ministries had scuppered the production plans,
and that those sequences will now be transposed to South
Africa, which had long been talked about as a backup
location for India. In recent weeks, publicists for the
South African film industry went as far as to mock
the delays and hold-ups with the Indian authorities.
A day after the news was published, India
Railways - who were the last to hold out on granting Bond
23 permissions and were making demands such as Daniel
Craig becoming brand ambassador - hit back in the press
that it wasn't their fault. Chandralekha Mukherjee, executive
director, information and publicity, Indian Railways, told
the Times
of India, "We'd given them all the permissions.
They wanted to shoot in the Sabarmati yard and had asked
to shoot on two gauges - broad gauge and meter gauge -
and they wanted these for seven-hour stretches every day
for seven days in a row, and we'd agreed. All had been
worked out. They also wanted to shoot between Mumbai and
Goa on the hero train, and wanted a special shot where a
motorcycle from a bridge would jump on to a train,
and the coach on which he'd jump needed to be re-enforced,
and we agreed." |
|
|
"The matter was finalised by September 13. But a week later,
we were informed that after an international discussion, the
production team decided not to shoot in India. We've been very
cooperative with them. We had ourselves hoped that the movie
would be shot here," she confirmed.
The major location for Bond 23 will now be South Africa. Other
shooting is also expected in Istanbul, where permissions were
confirmed earlier this month. MI6 can confirm that the production
will be based once again at Pinewood Studios in the UK.
Briefing
The 23rd James Bond
film, "Skyfall", commenced principal studio photography on 7th November
2011 for a UK
release on October 26th, 2012 and the USA on November
9, 2012. MGM will produce, finance and distribute 007's
23rd adventure in
partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Daniel Craig will
be returning as the legendary British secret agent, alongside Judi
Dench as "M", with Sam Mendes directing a screenplay written by Neal
Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan. The cast will also include Bérénice Marlohe,
Javier Bardem, Naomie Harris, Ralph Fiennes, Albert Finney and Ben Wishaw.
The film will shoot at Pinewood Studios and on location in London, England;
Scotland; Shanghai, China and Istanbul, Turkey.
It will be the longest gap between Bond movies without
a change in the lead role. In addition, 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of
the EON Productions series of James
Bond films.
