Why Companies Shoot in Spain, From Locations to Facilities, Muscular Incentives, Shows’ Concepts, Local Talent Pools and Because the Country Features in the Screenplay
John Hopewell
13 min read
Russell Crowe starrer “The Last Druid” must rate as one of the highest-profile projects being brought to market at this week’s American Film Market. Its partners – Range Media Partners, Spain’s Nostromo, CAA Media Finance and AGC International – are aiming to shoot in Spain.
Norman Reedus, star of AMC Networks “The Walking Dead: Darryl Dixon” was besieged by fans late August as he shot Season 3 in Madrid, which looks set to double for London, double-decker red bus with signage for Trafalgar Square being caught on video cruising central Madrid streets.
Guy Ritchie filmed Henry Cavill starrer “In the Grey” for 35 days in Spain’s Canary Island of Tenerife last year, having also shot part of “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” in the country.
Led by “Game of Thrones’” Sean Bean, “This City is Mine,” produced by Left Bank Pictures for BBC One, shot in Marbella over March, April and early May.
“Venom: The Last Dance,” with Tom Hardy, spent $39 million lensing in Spain, partly at re-opened mega studios Ciudad de la Luz.
From France, Netflix smash hit “Under Paris,” with Bérénice Bejo and Paramount+/France Televisions “Zorro,” toplining Jean Dujardin, also shot in Spain. BBC/Amazon drama “The Night Manager” Season 2, co-produced by Nostromo, and ZDF Studios/RTVE “Weiss & Morales” are currently shooting in Spain.
Despite U.S. strikes, which postponed the arrival of a significant number productions in Spain, its list of recent international shoots goes on and on.
From the 1950s, huge productions have rolled in Spain, or were directly produced from there by Samuel Bronson – “El Cid,” “The Fall of the Roman Empire.” In modern times, Ridley Scott shot “1492” and multiple scenes of The Kingdom of Heaven” (2004) as well as “Exodus: Gods and Kings” (2014) in Spain. Warner Bros.’s “Clash of the Titans” (2009) and “Wrath of the Titans” rolled in the Canary Islands, Jonathan Glazer’s “Sexy Beast” (1999) lensed on Andalusia’s Costa del Sol.
Yet Spain only edged fully into consideration as an obvious international big shoot locale thanks to the massive success of HBO’s “Games of Thrones,” which shot in Spain from Season 5 in 2014 finding some of its most emblematic stunning locations there as well as the launch of tax incentives in Spain from 2015 and the decision of Netflix to locate its first European Production Hub in Madrid, announced in July 2018. That rolled off the dramatic success of “Money Heist,” confirmed by Netflix in first quarter 2018 results as its most-watched non-English language series ever.
Shot with a Spanish cast and crew, “Money Heist” became a massive advertisement for the depth of key tech talent in Spain, in an ever more competitive globalized film-TV landscape.
Last raised on Jan. 1, 2023, Spanish tax rebates (for international productions) and credits (for Spanish-nationality shows) rated among the most competitive in the world: Caps of €10 million ($10.9 million) per TV episode in mainland Spain and 25%-30% relief on spend or investment rising to €18 million ($19.6 million) per TV episode in the Canary Islands which offers 45%-54% breaks; deduction rates in the Basque Country’s Bizkaia rise to 60%.
On movies, mainland Spain offers returns capped at €20 million ($21.8 million) per shoot and the Canary Islands a maximum rebate/credit of €36 million ($39.2 million).
Now, as international shoot destiny, Spain is definitely on the radar.
“Increasingly, global studios are looking to Spain because of the favorable economic conditions and outstanding infrastructure. This is helped, too, by Spanish series and films now reaching global audiences,” says Erik Barmack, VP of international originals at Netflix when it launched its European Production hub and now heading up L.A.-based Wild Sheep Content which makes shows around the world from India to France and Chile to Mexico.
“Spain is a really vibrant market and definitely one of Europe’s leading in terms of a strong production market, talent and infrastructure,” said Olsberg·SPI managing director Leon Forde at a presentation of a Spanish Film Commission/Profilm study conducted by SPI-Olsberg on the Economic Impact of International Productions shot which estimated that 165 productions benefiting over 2019-22 from Spain’s tax rebates for international productions filmed in Spain generated an knock-on estimated minimum of €1.8 billion ($2.4 billion) in Gross Value Added (GVA) contributions to the national economy.
Spain and other top European shoot locales also form part of a new international film financing model forged by market realities.
Shooting “The Last Druid” in Spain “brings in co-production equity to the film, strong incentives plus excellent crews and also qualifies ‘The Last Druid’ as European, which gives added ancillary value for European broadcasters,” Stuart Ford, chairman-CEO of AGC Studios, said just before introducing the Russell Crowe starrer as its international sales agent at this week’s American Film Market .
“With U.S. pre-sales hard to achieve, more than ever the key unlocking independent financing is to keep the net cost of production after incentives to a level where the price point for pre-sale buyers internationally is reasonably attractive ,” he added.
Yet as Barmack, Forde and Ford imply, the robust influx of international titles is not just a case of tax breaks. Following, a drill down on four shoots which show how the imperious necessity to shoot in a country most often lies elsewhere. A tax regime allows it to become a practicability.
“This City Is Ours,” (BBC, Left Bank Pictures, U.K.)
Shooting in Spain was an obvious choice, says Simon Maloney, hired by Sony Pictures TV-backed Left Bank Pictures to produce “This City is Ours,” written by Stephen Butchard (“The Last Kingdom” and directed by Saul Dibb (“The Sixth Commandment”). Billed as an “epic new drama” by the BBC, and looking like one of its heavyweight offerings for 2025, the eight-part series stars Sean Bean as Liverpool gang leader Ronnie Whelan who owns a villa in Spain’s Marbella, Southern Europe’s entry point for cocaine.
That said, “This City is Ours” renews one of the most extraordinarily productive relations on Europe’s international shoot scene, between Left Bank and Mallorca’s Palma Pictures, headed by Mike Day, who co-produced Sky 1 hit “Mad Dogs” (2011-13) which ran to four seasons before Palma Pictures serviced “The Crown” (2016-2013) and “Who Is Erin Carter?” Netflix’s third-most viewed show of any language second half 2023, which filmed across Catalonia including capital Barcelona.
Spain can afford spectacular locations such as on “This City is Ours” the Colombian’s cartel’s base in Marbella, a villa which looked like a Bond lair, hung off the side of a cliff in a very exclusive part of Marbella,” and the “stunningly beautiful” El Torcal National Park, says Maloney.
At a time when any series budget is under pressure, the production contained costs in various ways.
On “The Crown,” Andalusian locations doubled up for Athens, Australia and Hollywood. On “This City,” Málaga Port doubled for Santander’s in northern Spain, freeway cafe near Marbella was made to suggest one in central Spain.
Also,“Palma Pictures was great in giving us a production base at the Wyndham Grand Hotel, where cast and crew stayed and we tried to hit all of our locations within a 45 minute-to-an hour so everybody had nice working days and we avoided huge travel times,” Maloney says. The base “gave us an enormous dance floor and a massive kind of plethora of locations and landscapes to explore,” said Maloney. “It was a really lovely experience. It was one of my favorite shooting experiences,” he added. Coming from the producer of Jimmy McGovern’s “Time,” breakout “I May Destroy You” and “Peaky Blinders” Season 3, that’s quite a compliment.
“Zorro,” (Paramount+, France Télévisions, Le Collectif 64, Bien Sûr Productions, France)
Locations determined the Spanish shoot of “Zorro,” starring Academy Award winner Jean Dujardin (“The Artist”) as the comically schizophrenic technocratic Don Diego de la Vega – who becomes Mayor of 1821 Los Angeles, bedevilled by the mayhem caused by his alter-ego masked avenger.
But the question of locations cuts various ways.
“We decided very quickly to shoot in Spain, because of its natural landscapes,” Le Collectif 64 producer Marc Dujardin tells Variety. “If you shoot exteriors in Spain, you have to shoot interiors as well. It’s very difficult to combine two tax breaks systems.” Tapping into Spain’s tax rebate for international productions, the eight-part series could remain 100% European. Also, when it comes to natural interiors, “there is nothing closer to Spanish California than in Spain.”
These interiors were found “easily enough” around Toledo, where “Zorro” used two fincas – rural mansions. One was the 16th century country house Los Lavaderos, where Sophia Loren, Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra shot scenes from 1957’s “Pride and Passion.” At Los Lavaderos, “Zorro” filmed exteriors of Diego’s home and interiors of villain Don Emmanuel’s house. Diego’s interiors – the bedroom, dining room – plus the series’ casino and castle scenes shot at La Alamedilla, an extraordinary huge modern mock-19th century Mexican hacienda.
For scrub desert scenes, the producers built sets around extant houses at El Chorrillo in Almería, which was used before by Ridley Scott for “Exodus.”
“Zorro” is a relatively rare European production for Paramount+, which airs the eight-part series in France, U.K., Italy, Germany and Latin America before public broadcaster France Televisions releases in France.
“Shooting in Spain was a perfect solution. Spain has wonderful deserts,” says Dujardin. That said, cost was an issue, as ever these days. “There are very few crew members in Almería,” says Dujardin, so they had to be imported at “big cost” from Madrid. “The balance of travel and accommodation costs between a Madrid area and Almería has to be calculated very carefully,” he adds.
Zorro
“Under Paris,” (Netflix, Same Player, Let Me Be)
Spain can attract with its landscapes, but also thanks to its growing bouquet of cutting edge studios. One case in point: “Under Paris,” the second most-popular non-English language movie ever on Netflix with 102.3 million views, a French monster shark action thriller directed by Xavier Gens and produced by Vincent Roget’s Same Player, the same team behind “Mayhem!” Starring Academy Award nominated Bérénice Bejo (“The Artist”), “Under Paris” begins with Bejo’s character, a brilliant marine scientist, discovering a shark, named Lilith, in the north Pacific which attacks without cause and has grown unnaturally fast to seven meters. Two years later, Lilith’s adapted even more because of climate change and is found in the Seine – just before a Triathlon race in Seine in the preparations for the Olympics. Carnage beckons.
Belgium’s Vilvoorde has the Lites Studios, billed as the most advanced water stage in the world for filming underwater and on water surface. But Lites is an indoor studio. In Alicante’s Ciudad de la Luz, reopened last year, where J.A. Bayona shot “The Impossible’s” stunning tsunami sequence in 2010, Spain has one of Europe’s rare open-air water tanks. The next nearest may be in Malta, Same Player’s Vincent Roget tells Variety. Spain also has the attraction of foreign shoot tax breaks, he adds.
“Under Paris” shot four weeks in the Ciudad’s water tank, another week on the nearby Spanish coast.
“For sanitary reasons, you can’t shoot in the Seine,” says Roget. So “Under Paris” involved an extraordinarily complex shot-set up. Takes from above boats in the Seine were shot in Paris. Shots of Lilith attacking boats were lensed at the Ciudad de la Luz. Swimmers are entirely under water were filmed at Lites Studios, Roget explains.
Ciudad de la Luz’s water tank also allowed “Under Paris” to lens with the camera zipping along a cable system, rather like at soccer matches, says Roget.
The crowd scenes in “Under Paris’” extravaganza finale also used Spanish extras. “Spanish extras are very good, very reactive, know how to shout, very enthusiastic. You can feel it on the screen. It was very exciting,” Roget recalls.
Again, he was highly complimentary about his Spanish line producer, Fernando Victoria de Lecea. “It wasn’t easy shooting the shark film, which had a lot of VFX. You needed a hugely professional producer and Fernando was great.”
Roget has now joined the fast-growing list of filmmakers or TV companies who come back to Spain, having returned to shoot a remake of Belgium movie “Hasta la Vista” in Navarre’s Bárdenas badlands. He plans a second movie shoot, a long one, there next summer.
Says Roget: “The only thing I can say about shooting in Spain is: ‘When can we start the next one?”
One driving force behind Nordic Noir was Germany’s ZDF Enterprises, now ZDF Studios, which co-produced two of its milestones, “The Killing” and “The Bridge.” Both turned on Scandinavians. With “Weiss & Morales,” in contrast, ZDF Studios wanted to tell a story about Germany and Spain, and Germans and Spaniards, given Germans often feel very close to Spain, Susanne Frank, director drama, ZDF Studios, said at a panel, Igniting Global Hits – The Ultimate Audiovisual Hub, at October’s Mipcom, staged as part of its Spain Country of Honor focus.
“Weiss & Morales” connect Germans and Spaniards in and off the screen, with German BKA agent Nina Weiss (Katia Fellin) and Raúl Morales (Miguel Angel Silvestre), a Spanish Civil Guard sergeant, obliged in the series to partner when a crime is committed in the Canary Islands’ German community.
Off screen, “Weiss & Morales” is produced by Germany’s Nadcon, headed by Peter Nadermann, a producer of “The Killing” and “The Bridge” when a ZDF Enterprises exec, and the Alfonso Blanco-headed Portocabo in Spain, behind “Hierro,” a pioneering hit Movistar Plus+Arte crime drama set on the Canary Island of the title. They are partnered by ZDF Studios, the co-production and acquisitions arm of German pubcaster ZDF, and RTVE, Spain’s state network.
“Germans love crime and Spanish crime stories work very well internationally. A lot of Germans reside in the Canary Islands and their extraordinary tax incentives made the show all the more attractive,” Frank said at Mipcom.
Shooting in Spain also allows the partners to deliver the kind of “blue sky” procedural which markets demand. While the original Danish “The Killing” took two seasons to resolve one crime, “Weiss & Morales” – in a symptom of the lighter crime dramas demanded by current markets – crack a case per episode, while exploring family and ideas of success.
A promo showcased at Cannes showed Weiss and Morales at work, backed by stunning volcanic landscapes and, literally, blue sky and aquamarine Atlantic waters.
“There is the attraction of crime in a sunny climate. We tend to have a lot of crime shows that are a bit darker. Nowadays also it’s the perfect time also to have this kind of lightness, to tell lightness,” said Frank.
The cost crunch is also playing out in TV production, as players activate strategies to produce high quality shows without losing their shirts. “Partnering and tapping some of Europe’s best incentives in Europe allows broadcasters to secure rights for their domestic markets at a fraction of usual costs without damaging production levels,” Nadermann has noted.
