In mid-August 2018, areas of the UK’s city of Liverpool were transformed into the US capital for seasons 3 and 4 of the big-budget Netflix period drama The Crown. The Left Bank Pictures production is the latest in a long line to double Liverpool for American cities such as New York and Washington DC.
The eagerly awaited revival of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks premiered last night at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, marking the Director’s first entry in the franchise since the 1992 feature film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.
Netflix’s homage to 1980’s science-fiction, Stranger Things, was this year’s surprise TV winner at the 2017 Screen Actors Guild Awards, taking home the accolade for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. The new series brought an end to Downton Abbey’s two year winning streak at SAG.
Period war drama TURN: Washington’s Spies is set to film a third season on location in Virginia. Set during America’s Revolutionary War of the 1770s, the series is based on the true story of a clandestine group of spies who assisted George Washington in the fight against the British.
Washington, DC, has launched a small film fund for the first time in half a decade. The success of TV shows like Veep and House of Cards have sustained Washington as a hugely popular setting, but the city is not regarded as film-friendly and supports very few production days.
Popular Cold War spy series The Americans doubles New York for 1980s Washington, DC. Currently in its third season, the drama follows two Russian KGB agents living undercover as an American married couple in northern Virginia towards the end of the Cold War.
Political drama House of Cards has returned to Netflix and is likely to raise Maryland’s production profile as a double for Washington, DC. Baltimore doubles for the US capital in the popular drama and has now hosted the show for three seasons.
Washington Square Films turned a home in Prague in the Czech Republic into a US household in a new spot for disinfectant brand Lysol. The shoot was serviced by Milk and Honey Films, and Prague was chosen mainly for its cost savings.
Lawmakers in Washington, DC, are pushing to introduce local filming incentives. The city is a popular setting for TV productions like House of Cards, Veep and Scandal, but high-profile shows typically only spend a couple of days in the actual city to film establishing shots.