UK in Focus - page 8

REGIONAL CASE STUDY
SOUTH EAST
As the latest in a long line of Marvel movies to shoot in the UK, Doctor Strange is making the
most of the south east’s excellent locations and infrastructure.
Mark Salisbur
y reports.
Marvel’s
MAGICAL MYSTERY
Tour
W
hen it comes to assembling the
Earth’s mightiest superheroes,
Marvel Studios — home to Iron
Man, Captain America, Thor and the rest — likes
to do it in the UK.
Doctor Strange
is the latest Marvel film to
shoot in the territory after
Captain America: The
First Avenger
,
Thor: The Dark World
,
Guardians of
the Galaxy
and
Avengers: Age of Ultron
, and was
based at Surrey’s Longcross Studios.
X-Men:
First Class
, from 20th Century Fox in association
with Marvel, also shot in the UK.
The story of neurosurgeon Stephen Strange
who, after a horrific car accident, discovers a
hidden world of magic and alternative dimen-
sions,
Doctor Strange
is part of the studio’s third
phase of films that kicks off with
Captain Amer-
ica: Civil War
and takes Marvel into uncharted
territory.
“Given the nature of the story, there’s some
pretty ambitious set pieces and concepts,”
reveals Executive Producer Charles Newirth.
“Once you introduce magic into a story, you can
do all sorts of crazy new things visually. So the
challenge has been two-fold, dreaming up
sequences that audiences haven’t seen before,
then figuring out how we’re going to pull these
off on a soundstage, backlot or on the crowded
streets of Nepal.”
Doubling for the world
Directed by Scott Derrickson and starring
Benedict Cumberbatch as the eponymous
magician alongside Tilda Swinton, Chiwetel
Ejiofor and Rachel McAdams,
Doctor Strange
is
set in the exotic locales of New York, London
and Nepal. But while the production shot for a
week in Kathmandu in November 2015, and a
further week in New York in April 2016, the
majority is being shot on location in England,
and at Longcross and Shepperton studios.
“This film is set predominantly in New York,”
says Supervising Location Manager Jamie
Lengyel, who worked on
Avengers: Age of Ultron
prior to
Doctor Strange
. “The challenge [is that]
we’re shooting in three continents but we’re
bringing as much as we can back to London
and the south east; as much as possible within
range of our studio base. So a lot of my work
has been matching London for New York.”
To that end, the production chose to film at
Londoneast-uk Business & Technical Park in
Dagenham, east London, on the site of a former
pharmaceutical company that was “a perfect
location for a hi-tech hospital”, says Lengyel. “It
provided all the operating theatres and corridors
and tied in with our hospital set [at Longcross
WE’RE SHOOTING IN THREE
CONTINENTS BUTWE’RE
BRINGING AS MUCH AS WE
CAN BACK TO LONDON AND
THE SOUTH EAST
Jamie Lengyel, Supervising Location Manager
Benedict Cumberbatch in
character as Doctor Strange
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