London is experiencing a filmmaking boom.
WOODY ALLEN has abandoned plans to shoot his next film in Paris this summer and will instead come to Britain for a third time.
One of the industry’s most original film-makers has cancelled his flight to the French capital weeks before filming was due to begin with a cast headed by the Oscar-nominated actress Michelle Williams.
The budget for Paris, the producers realised, was too high and London was a far more attractive option. Allen made Match Point — his most commercially successful film, starring Scarlett Johansson — in London. His second London film, Scoop, is yet to be released.
Like most of his films, plot details are kept firmly under wraps, but the abandoned Paris project was said to be about young Americans in the city. For Williams — whom he was already describing as his new muse — it would have been the first role since her Oscar-nominated performance in Brokeback Mountain.
One of the producers, Gareth Wiley, who also produced the two earlier London films, told The Times yesterday that they decided at the weekend to abandon Paris. “It was too expensive,” he said, confirming that they would be filming “a unique story written specially for London”.
Allen sang the praises of London last year, saying that the way of working on this side of the Atlantic was a welcome change. He said that the insistence of Hollywood studios on seeing scripts and commenting on casting was oppressive.
Even though he did not have London in mind when he wrote Match Point, he found himself overwhelmed by the freedom that he was offered in Britain. He likes to be left alone to make a film. “In London I could work that way,” he said.
He also liked how London’s grey skies and flat light “gave a colour saturation to everything that’s very rich and very beautiful for photography”.
Match Point also starred the Irish actor Jonathan Rhys- Meyers as a tennis professional who has affairs with two women in a love triangle that ends in tragedy. One was played by Johansson — who made her name in the critically acclaimed Lost in Translation — and the other by the British actress Emily Mortimer.
London had a big supporting role. Landmarks such as Tate Modern and the Royal Opera House were featured. The capital is experiencing a filmmaking boom. Red tape and health and safety obstacles are being relaxed in an effort to ease the path of film-makers.
Since it started two years ago, Film London, the planning agency for film and media, has put into place a range of initiatives. Across the city, the number of shooting days has increased by 30 per cent over the past two years.
timesonline.co.uk
