Written by on Apr 12, 2012. Posted in Production News

Battleship delivers aliens and naval carnage on location in Hawaii

Filmmaker Peter Berg spent months filming off the Hawaiian coast on a series of floating sets for his big-budget studio movie Battleship. Loosely tied to the classic board game, the film tells the story of a US naval crew fighting an alien army in the Pacific Ocean.

Peter Berg spoke to Den of Geek about his experience: “We started filming a mile off the coast of Hawaii with these giant barges, and these big pieces of sets that were floating, and 600 people had to be boated out there every day. We could have been three weeks behind schedule, a day after shooting, literally, you know?”

We started filming a mile off the coast of Hawaii with these giant barges, and these big pieces of sets that were floating, and 600 people had to be boated out there every day.

Peter Berg

Shooting was originally planned for Australia’s Gold Coast, but the lack of suitable filming incentives prompted the production to head for Hawaii instead.

The strength of the Australian dollar has been off-putting to US projects recently and is one of the reasons why Steven Spielberg’s recently-cancelled prehistoric-set TV series Terra Nova racked up high production costs after filming a season in Queensland. Spielberg originally decided against a Hawaii shoot for the series to avoid too many comparisons with his Jurassic Park filming locations.

Battleship is in the middle of a rolling global cinema release.

(Stills images copyright: Universal Pictures)