The filming of The Gray Man for half a billion begins in the Czech Republic. It will close the center of Prague – ČT24 – Czech Television
The capital will also play Bangkok
With its scope and the number of Prague locations, the film has no period, Prague 1 has even set up a special one webwhere people can watch current occupations. “It is one of the projects we have been living with for more than a year,” says Pavlína Žipková, head of the department of the Czech Film Commission of the State Fund of Cinematography. The Czechia has reportedly been competing for filming in competition with several European countries since last March, but the first contact did not come directly from Netflix, but from a British production company. “For reasons of confidentiality, we only knew the basis that the producer was an American studio, and we were given a list of locations and countries where an action thriller from the present takes place,” recalls Žipková.
The Czech Film Commission, in cooperation with regional offices, prepared packages of locations together with information about the Czech incentive system and the benefits of filming in the Czech Republic. “We learned about the success of the summer. Unfortunately, it will not be filmed in the regions in the end, the filming plan is extremely inflated and it was necessary to find everything in one palm, which Prague provided. But Prague is not only playing itself, Bangkok, one other Central European city and one Asian state will also represent the film, “says Žipková.
Exactly for the large crowd scene of New Year’s celebrations in Bangkok, which is to be filmed on the night of July 14, Prague casting agencies have recently been looking for eight hundred extras, whose nationality is Thai, Vietnamese or Indonesian. On Friday, we will find the agencies of about thirty people for Monday’s filming of a spectacular state funeral. The main stars Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans are already in the Czech Republic, and in the course of twenty filming days they should film exactly two crews and shoot scenes with one hundred and fifty or two hundred and fifty people.
Sandler and Mulligan are in Prague
In addition to Gosling and Evans, however, Adam Sandler is currently filming in Prague in another Netflix project, which is an adaptation of a book by Czech author Jaroslav Kalfar, Cosmonaut from Bohemia. According to information from ČT24, actress Carey Mulligan is already in the Czech Republic, playing the wife of the character Sandler. An astronaut from Bohemia has fifteen shooting days.
“Part of the story is taking place in our country and it would actually be a shame if the filmmakers did not shoot at least some scenes here,” says Žipková. The staff was seen in Prague 1 and 8, but also in the small villages of Bernartice in the Písek region, where a wooden structure was built by a local pond a few days ago, which the filmmakers had set on fire. Now he is heading to Mariánské Lázně, for example. The product Cosmonaut from the Czech Republic, as well as The Gray Man, is provided by the Czech company Stillking Films.
In the Czech Republic, the filming of the second series and several parts of the third series of the Carnival Row series with Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne, and the second series of The Wheel of Time with Rosamund Pike, will continue in the summer. Both Amazon projects can be considered the most expensive ones shot in our country, both have already spent around five billion crowns in the Czech Republic with other planned expenditures in the coming years.
“The most sought-after locations in the summer are castles, it is being shot to adapt to dangerous acquaintances, and a biographical film about an important French composer of the 18th century is also being prepared,” adds Žipková. According to information from ČT24, after the productions of Netflix and Amazon, the Apple TV + video library should visit the Czech Republic next year and shoot the second series of the Foundation’s sci-fi series, where it is also impossible to spend hundreds of millions of crowns.