UPDATED: There is a tidbit of news on the progress for the new Star Trek movie. According to the Mayor of Seoul South Korea, the 2016 Star Trek movie will do some location shooting in that city.
UPDATE 2: Trek film to primarily shoot in Vancouver
In another exclusive follow-up, TrekMovie has details on where most of the upcoming Star Trek film will be shot.
UPDATE: Mayor Confirms Agreement To Shoot In Seoul
On Sunday, Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon made a post on his Facebook page reporting his his Hollywood meetings, which included this (translated by Korea Observer):
Today I met with Jeffrey Chernov, producer of Star Trek 3, at the Paramount Pictures Studio and agreed to film a portion of the upcoming movie in Seoul.
And today Bob Orci made the following comment here at TrekMovie.com
boborci
the Mayor was a lovely man :)
TrekMovie has already reported that the upcoming Star Trek film will not be Earth focused, so it appears that the Korean location will be standing in for some kind of alien location, or possibly a (non-Earth) Starfleet location. It isn’t clear yet if the production is being drawn to Korea through incentives or something unique about Seoul to match the scene they need to create (or combination of the two).
original article
Star Trek With Seoul?
Park Won-soon, mayor of Seoul, South Korea, has been in Los Angeles to meet with LA mayor Eric Garcetti and mostly to tour the LA’s emergency preparedness systems to see if there is anything to be learned for his city. But according to the LA Times, Won-soon also spent some time courting Hollywood to lure productions to his city, and apparently Star Trek was part of that agenda. From the article:
During his trip, Park said he was also meeting with Hollywood producers and directors to court them to film in Seoul, citing the shoot of the movie “Avengers: Age of Ultron” in the city this year. He said the city was in talks with filmmakers behind the next “Star Trek” movie to film there.
“We provided every convenience for them, blocking streets or districts in total,” Park said of the “Avengers” shoot.
As reported earlier by TrekMovie, director Roberto Orci is now in the early stages of pre-production for his Star Trek movie slated to be released in the summer of 2016. This is the time that the filmmakers would be looking at various locations. It is too early to tell if the talks with the mayor or Seoul will bear fruit, but it is likely that the discussion were related to location shooting and not for the entire feature.
"The Bourne Legacy" being shot in Seoul, South Korea – could the next Star Trek shoot there too?
Thanks to Ralph for tip
wonder what it could be, if the story is less earth-centered… an alien city?
I just knew this movie would have a lot of Seoul to it!
Is Korea really that much cheaper?
What this does mean is that maybe for one sequence they won’t use a green screen… Going to be fun to see what they end up using Korea for. But I love the attitude of the country to help out and encourage productions there
My only problem is I can’t imagine what about Seoul could pass for a “strange new world”?
It’s the Borg homeworld, mark my words!
Bob Orci told me on Twitter that they were in the process of rebuilding the Enterprise sets. That was a few weeks ago. What he didn’t say is where they are building them.
@7 Mike Barnett
yeah, I saw that tweet. I also remember a remark about moving the production out of LA for the next one to save some dough. But wouldn’t the cost of shipping all those set pieces across the Pacific be a waster of money?
Everybody in every state or country would love films to be shot in there area, so I would like to suggest my small island of Puerto Rico USA no passports needed as an option for filming also. Crossbones is shot here as many others have been.
Or Eminiar VII: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Eminiar_VII_surface_remastered.jpg
@8 Mad Mann
It might be cheaper to build the sets from scratch if they’ll film in Seoul. Didn’t California pass a new rebate program to keep productions in LA?
Bob – if you can afford it you could / should shoot extraordinary exteriors and interiors at The City of Arts and Science in Valencia, Spain. You would hardly need to use any green screen as it is a total futuristic package! BTW, the art director of the first two films is heavily influenced by the aeshetics of Santiago Calatrava, the architect of the project.
@8. Most people just don’t realize just how expensive it is to do business here. And it gets even more expensive next year with substantial new fuel taxes kicking in. Yeah, shipping sets to Korea would probably be cheaper….
Seoul gets ya the Chinese audience.
Darned clever these Hollywood folk.
Kirk: How’s your Gomguk, Bones?
McCoy: Just like mother used to make.
Spock: I did not know your mother was Klingon, Dr. McCoy.
McCoy: A Klingon in the kitchen, an Orion in the bedroom. That’s what Pappy McCoy used to tell me…
6, Adm Bumblebee, Heaven forbid! For … bid! The Borg have been done to DEATH. And beyond.
10 Bird of Prey, Yeah! I wonder if Spock will get hit with a fried-egg-lookin’ thing [fake vomit from some joke shop…]!
14 Cmdr R, LOL
It could stand in for any futuristic city, and possibly a civilized alien world. Or there may be locations in the countryside that are quite beautiful and could possibly look “alien.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if Koreans are big sci-fi fans. Now if they only know the diff between Star Trek and Star Wars, we’ll be in good shape.
As Phil says, the cost of shipping certain pieces of the set could be a hella lot cheaper, definitely than filming in California. I’m thinking they’ll film the Enterprise parts in Vancouver [cheaper to truck ’em and less possibility of damage], and exteriors in Korea, but who knows.
# 14. CmdrR – September 30, 2014
” Seoul gets ya the Chinese audience.” — CmdrR
Really? I would think they’d be more inclined to ban it because it was filmed in SOUTH Korea. Don’t they still have active treaties economic and otherwise with the NORTH?
#3:
> Is Korea really that much cheaper?
Probably not massively, but enough to tune the numbers. The average household income in South Korea is higher than in the US (and even than in the UK), but the entertainment industry works its people pretty hard, and then you have subsidies. Korea has a sizable production industry and the talent is high-grade. It makes a ton of feature films both to domestic and international acclaim, as well as a lot of TV. Their entertainment products have a massive presence in Southeast Asia (and outside; Korean TV shows are doing extremely well also in the Middle East and Latin America).
I mean, you also have a lot of Hollywood productions shooting in Babelsberg in Germany. Germany isn’t “cheap”, either, but can make financial sense much the same.
#5:
> My only problem is I can’t imagine what about Seoul could pass for a “strange new world”?
Nothing in particular, really. Seoul isn’t too individual in terms of architecture or skyline. You can probably find a few interesting buildings here and there, but then the same is true for the US as Star Trek has shown again and again (e.g. Starfleet Academy).
#16:
> I would think they’d be more inclined to ban it because it was filmed in SOUTH Korea.
They won’t ban it, but CmdrR isn’t really right either. It’s true that South Korean entertainment products (TV shows, pop music, etc.) do fairly well in China, but by no means extraordinarily so, and I don’t think an American production gets any extra props for doing shooting things in Seoul.
Don’t drop another starship on it, please.
I would imagine that South Korea offers a lot of cheap labour. No unions, few safety regulations…..a tantalizing place for a Hollywood production to set up shop.
Number 6 – I hope so dude!
I think this is a great opportunity to introduce the Borg and it wouldn’t be far fetched either as Nero’s ship contained Borg technology…
Surely a ship from the future containing Borg technology would grab the Queen’s attention – and it wouldn’t need much explaining for a) new fans who switched on from 09 movie b) average Joe movie goer.
Perhaps a way to tie up the whole trilogy would be to reference the Nero event from the first movie and have this as the catalyst for the new Villain. I would like to see the Borg upset NuKirk’s five year mission and for him to be contacted by Starfleet (possibly even Admiral Archer) about “strange readings” coming from where Nero’s ship was destroyed, readings that Archer has only seen once before when he ship was attacked by Bio-Mechanical beings; there could also be some reference to Cochrane’s experiences in First Contact for the die hard fans.
Whilst Kirk is busy investigating there could be a scene in the Prime timeline with Picard talking about the disappearance of Spock. Starfleet have discovered that he may be alive and trapped in an alternative timeline. This could also lead to a scene with Admiral Janeway talking about how Starfleet have also noticed some Borg activity near Romulus where Nero and Spocks ships vanished. Again this wouldn’t take a lot of explaining, and would make sense to people who have watched the first movie, also the average Joe movie goer knows that Stewart has done Star Trek; Mulgrew is also a household name, perhaps more so now for her work in Orange is the new Black – this, coupled with Stewart could pull in a few more viewers.
Prime timeline Starfleet decide they must recover Ambassador Spock and investigate the new Borg threat, Picard volunteers. Meanwhile, in the JJ-verse Pine’s Enterprise, frustrated at chasing sensor ghosts are alerted to a singularity being opened in the same place that Nero’s ship entered – they investigate and find a Starfleet vessel, its Picard. They hail Picards ship… “We’re looking for Ambassador Spock…” …. “We?”…. *cue Shatner reveal*….
Etc etc…
Starbase 11?
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110323184142/memoryalpha/en/images/1/1b/Starbase_11_Night.jpg
Bob posted this in a different comment thread:
154. boborci – September 30, 2014
the Mayor was a lovely man:)
I’d love a feature whereby you could search all of boborci’s replies on this forum.
That “central park” area/thingy could provide for an alien type home world?
I’m a little sad this is being outsourced….
the photo at the top is just random shot of Seoul skyline. There is no indication yet where they are going to shoot
23. David Oakes
You could use your browser search feature for each comment thread or I’m sure you could do a site search using Google. Something like this should work in Google:
site:trekmovie.com “boborci”
16 – Disinvited — There’s a cultural connection. Currently, Beijing is courting Seoul. Even Chinese leaders know Kim Jong Un is a jerk. (And apparently he’s fat, overly fond of cheese, and weak-ankled from inbreeding — there, I said it!) But, yes, the Asian political landscape is as tentative as the pan-Arab region, for instance. Still, I think the most important factor is that Hollywood recognizes a need to appeal to Asian audiences directly. Why else would Batman and Optimus Prime keep showing up in China?
Oh, and check my numbers, but I’m reading that China accounted for $222M of TAoE’s billion-plus take worldwide.
Seems as though people like to see their backyard trashed by giant robot dinosaurs.
It makes business sense to film part of it over there. Saves the production money while creating interest in your product – in that market. That equals box office gold! (hopefully)
Seoul and Soul, what is soul. Is it … katra?
30. kmart
LOL! It must be!
New Vulcan, maybe?
Alternate timeline Cardassians would be interesting…
Interesting location.
Thanks to Ralph Pinheiro for the breaking news.
@ 2. Harry Ballz
“I just knew this movie would have a lot of Seoul to it!”
LOL
“…this is significant as it will be the first Star Trek film to do any shooting outside of United States.”
Star Trek Into Darkness shot in Iceland.
http://www.artofvfx.com/STID/STID_ATOMIC_VFX_02A.jpg
If not earth-centered, it could be an Earth colony… Earth has tons of colonies out in space at the time of Kirk and Spock (heck, at the time of Archer there were tons of them). This could be a colony world… it might not even take place in downtown either – if it’s truly alien, it could be shot in the suburbs of the city… way too speculative…
@36 I thought they cancelled the location shoot in Iceland due to budget and time constraints?
@14, you have a real knack at classic trek dialogue!! I loved it. Maybe @boborci should give you a call!
Probably will be an earth or alien colony world. Obviously they have business reasons to do this — many of the big tent-pole films now pretty much do this to get a rise from the Asian box office.
May God help us thought if they have Samsung tie-ins. LOL
# 37. kietero – September 30, 2014
” @36 I thought they cancelled the location shoot in Iceland due to budget and time constraints?” — kietero
You are thinking of the 2009 effort’s originally scheduled Delta Vega shoot.
40. Disinvited
I am irritated. Did they shoot in Iceland or not? I thought, Anthony said as well, that the shooting in Iceland didn’t happen.
boborci if you are around, one question: you mentioned some time ago that you were trying to decide if the film would be about exploration or feature the crew defeating another villain. Are you now in a position to tell us which it will be about?
#5 Remember how Tokyo past for a futuristic city in the Tarkovsky version of Solaris.
# 41. Stephan – September 30, 2014
Part of the confusion is two different movies planned on using Iceland
In the 2009 Trek effort, they had planned to film the Delta Vega scenes in Iceland but Anthony reported THAT got cut due to budgetary constraints, so they made do with the Dodger Ballpark Parking lot.
For STID, they went back to a parking lot again for the “pop the top” torpedo scenes but green-screened in some background and surrounding scenes of a black rock beach from Iceland. What isn’t clear is whether the Director of Photography sent anybody to Iceland to get those shots? But regardless, most of what is seen in that scene is, in fact, Iceland.
40. Stephan
My understanding is that they shot the background for the planet they opened the torpedo on in Iceland. The actors did not actually go there it was laid in later in post production.
Thanks for clarification. :)
# 41. Stephan – September 30, 2014
Correction: The STID Iceland Photos were used as a reference for a green-screened in matte painting.
Ok, so Seoul would be the first outside of the US location unless they don’t just need it for the matte paintings. ;)
Could this mean that Kim Jong Un, the Supreme Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, has been unwillingly cast as the villain of the movie to be filmed in a historic feat of guerrilla film-making?
It could. But it probably doesn’t.
@35
Thanks, Ahmed! I’m glad somebody laughed at it. :>)