Why Producers of ‘Daryl Dixon,’ ‘3 Body Problem,’ ‘The Crown’ Keep Coming Back to Spain: Crews, Locations, Service Companies
As “Game of Thrones’” foreign unit line producer and then producer, Duncan Muggoch leveraged some of Spain’s staggering landscapes and historical heritage sites into iconic settings for “Game of Thrones.” He returned to Spain as co-executive producer of “3 Body Problem” to create crucial early scenes in China for the Netflix banner show.
Steve Squillante, an executive producer on AMC+ mega-hit “The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon,” served as Netflix VP of physical production for local language originals over 2018-20 as the U.S. streamer released and began to produce “Money Heist,” as well as bowing early seasons of “Elite.”
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He is now back in Spain, shooting “Daryl Dixon,” a virtual road series which travels the length and breadth of Spain, embracing its culture, even though it’s a post-apocalypse story.
Likewise, Suzanne Mackie, an executive producer on “Mad Dogs” and “The Crown,” both shot extensively in Spain, returned this year to shoot “spectacular” scenes in Netflix’s series “The Seven Dials Mystery.”
Why top producers on the international series scene come back to Spain is little mystery at all: Among the big reasons are crews, locations and service companies. Spanish tax breaks hiked at the beginning of 2023, make the financials practicable.
Meanwhile, U.S. producer Rebellium Films is exploring a new business model in Spain: Basque Country tax-break co-financed productions, as U.S. production costs are driving ever more companies to look for soft money solutions in Europe.
Variety drills down on the Spanish shoots of “3 Body Problem,” ““The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon,” “The Seven Dials Mystery” and Rebellium’s Spain-shot sci-thriller “UAP”:
“3 Body Problem”
The big sci-fi Netflix hit shot in Spain because of a particular mountain, says co-executive producer Muggoch.
Found near Extremadura’s village of Guadalupe, south-west Spain, the jagged-ridged 5,100-foot Pico Villuercas topped in the series by a huge radio telescope dish is first seen by Ye Wenjie rearing above her as she hauls logs in the mud halfway through its “Countdown” Episode 1 as a young woman in Inner Mongolia in 1967. Yw Wenjie returns in Ep. 7 to find the site dilapidated and deserted.
Reached by a real asphalted road, which snakes around the mountainside, the mountain also affords spectacular panoramic views of wooded plains way below, stretching to the horizon.
Reasons for shooting in Spain were “very specific. We needed a mountain with structures on the top in Spain, which doubled for China. We found an old army station at the very top of the mountain. What was amazing is that it had a kind of asphalted road right up to the top and most amazing views,” says Muggoch.
“3 Body Problem” used five weeks of prep to alter and construct more buildings, then shot for a week. The series also employed CGI to add the big satellite dish and “turned” some buildings. Interior scenes were shot back in London, where all the rest of “3 Body Problem” lensed.
“We did look in the U.K. for places like that, but it didn’t have anywhere the dramatic scenery or so accessible, with a road to get up to the top and a full shooting crew there as well,” says Muggoch.
The mountain was found by Tate Araez, a location scout for “3 Body Problem’s” Spanish service company Fresco Films.
Some crew locations, production, transport, SFX and local labor was brought in by Fresco, using local labor for more laboring types of jobs, like road lock-offs, some construction labor and a greens department. The main shooting crew, because it was a relatively small shoot we brought from the U.K.,” said Muggoch.
The series also performed “a lot” of VFX work at celebrated Spanish post-production house El Ranchito, which helped it to go well above the threshold to qualify for a tax rebate.
As a line producer or producer, Muggoch shot “Game of Thrones” in Spain from Season 5 and across its length and breadth from Season 6 when the series explored new worlds, helping to popularise staggering locations, such as the Royal Alcazar of Seville (Martell House), Bizkaia’s San Juan de Gaztelugatxe (Dragonstone Castle) and Navarre’s Bárdenas Reales badlands (Dothraki Sea ). Catalonia’s Girona Cathedral stood in for the Great Sept of Baelor.
“Spain is amazing for location filming. We shot nearly in every region of Spain,” Muggoch recalls. “I love Spain. I think it’s got the biggest diversity of any location in Europe. From the north to the center down to the south, you’ve got pretty much anything you could imagine,” says Muggoch.
Also, “I don’t think there’s one city I’ve been to where they haven’t been incredibly welcoming and the city is beautiful. The Spanish people are like that.”
“The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon” Season 3
Season 2 ended with Daryl and Carol trying to make it to the U.K. They appear to get there – the trailer has a shot of Stephen Merchant grinning in a London street – but in a major twist, the vast majority of Season 3 is shot and set in Spain.
Why so? One reason is the kind of show ‘Daryl Dixon’ is, says Steven Squillante, the non-writing executive producer on Seasons 1 and 2.
“This is not an American show that’s just relocated to France and then to Spain to shoot another version of an American show,” he tells Variety. “This is an American show that’s come into the continent and has not only just embraced but also completely wrapped its arms around the history of the people inside the countries and regions that we’re shooting.”
That embrace helped “The Walking Dead: Season 1” become the most-watched show in AMC+ history.
When talking Season 3 story ideas and where to go next, showrunner David Zabel, lead writer Jason Richman and Squillante considered “a lot of places,” all of which Squillante had worked in.
From a story perspective, “all [the places considered] were interesting,” Squillante recalls. Spain, however, became “very, very, very interesting” after initial scouts with Zabel, Richmond and an AMC team. “Everybody really loved it. We loved the experience of the crews, the country and what it provided for us from these beautiful landscapes to cities and certainly the culture of Spain,” Squillante enthuses. “David and the writers very deftly wove France into Daryl’s journey and then, in Season 2, Carol’s when she joined him. Now in this season, we’re very much weaving in Spain.”
That cuts several ways. “95%-plus” of Season 3 is being shot in Spain. “90% plus” of its crew is Spanish. Especially in core critical positions and in key positions, the team is all Spanish. Authenticity comes not just in front of the camera but from behind the camera as well,” Squillante argues.
The shoot of “The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon” is being serviced in Spain by Anima Stillking, launched this year by Maria Cabello, a “Kaos” and “Uncharted” production executive, and Silvia Araez, executive producer on “Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant” and Spain producer on “We Were the Lucky Ones.”
“There’s never one overwhelming factor in deciding to shoot in a country,” Squillante observes. “Talented crew, wonderful locations, the ability to secure important locations and a wonderful location team that’s extremely experienced: In Spain. a lot of the factors are wildly in the plus.”
The series is “a strange man and strange woman in a strange land parable. We do treat ourselves a little bit as an anthology. We very rarely go back to the same locations over and over again. So, as the stories progress, we move from place to place. Spain allows for an awful lot of that,” Squillante adds.
“Daryl Dixon” has visited Aragón, gaining permission to shoot for the better part of a week in the ruins of Belchite, a town near Zaragoza which was reduced to rubble in one of the biggest battles of 1936-39 Spanish Civil War. That was “incredible stuff,” says Squillante.
Also in Aragón, it’s shot a train sequence that will “blow people away,” requiring a secure fallow train line. Having been in Galicia and Alicante, “Daryl Dixon” will visit Barcelona, Seville and Granada.
“Spain has a really wonderful canvas that I don’t believe viewers are quite as familiar with. We’re taking advantage of our story and our ability to move the way we are to present a little bit more of the whole picture of Spain,” says Squillante.
“Even though it’s a post-apocalyptic world, you see pieces of culture and history and people don’t realize or the actual impressive cultural and environmental diversity in a country the size of Spain,” he adds. “Spain presents very interesting parallels to California. But a three-hour train ride from Madrid and you’re in Galicia, which is almost like New England.”
“The Seven Dials Mystery”
Securing one key location in Ronda, a spectacular town perched high in the mountains of Andalusia with a viaduct crossing a gorge, was enough to bring “The Seven Dials Mystery” to Spain, says “The Crown” executive producer Suzanne Mackie.
“There are the vistas, the lights on the mountains and we have an action sequence across the viaduct. It really is beautiful and spectacular,” she adds of the Netflix Agatha Christie series headlined by ‘How to Have Sex’ Star Mia McKenna-Bruce, Helena Bonham Carter, Martin Freeman and Ed Bluemel, on which Mackie again serves as EP.
Already anticipated in the screenplay by its scribe “Broadchurch” creator and former “Doctor Who” showrunner Chris Chibnall, the Ronda scene will now serve to open the Netflix Agatha Christie series.
“A fantastic opening,” it’s Chris Chibnall’s invention, but faithful to Agatha Christie’s style, notes Mackie who produces out of Orchid Pictures, the London-based company she established in 2020 under a deal with Netflix, having served for 12 years as creative director at Left Bank Pictures. Chibnall exec produces via his company Imaginary Friends.
Agatha Christie’s prologues sometimes take you somewhere far-flung and exotic before you’re into the story, “Bond” does the same,” Mackie says. “It’s a brilliant bit of invention because the characters and the world expand out, and you realize you’re in a world of high stakes. And so we set that up right at the beginning, although the mystery is retained about what’s exactly just happened.”
Set in 1925 and described as a “witty, epic and fast-paced drama,” “The Seven Dials Mystery” moves to the U.K. and a lavish country house party where a practical joke ends up in murder, but returns to Ronda at the beginning of Episode 2. “Both episodes start with a very interesting, very, very complex sequence, a quite high stakes sequence in Spain.”
Despite that, Mackie was able to finish the whole of the U.K. shoot over this Summer, have a small hiatus and then take a small reduced crew to Spain, where Mackie reunited with Palma Pictures.
Mackie had served as EP on “Mad Dogs,” co-produced by Left Bank Pictures and Mallorca’s Palma Pictures, headed by Mike Day, who co-produced the Sky 1 hit (2011-13) which ran to four seasons before Palma Pictures serviced “The Crown” (2016-2023).
“When we knew we would need to film a small element in Spain, I said: ‘You’ve got to talk to Palma Pictures because I’ve worked with them for years. I know them so well, and they’re fantastic.’”
It was Palma Pictures that secured shooting permission for the key location in Ronda.
“We worked with a lot of Spanish people we knew before from ‘The Crown,’ people we knew would be really good. Part of the joy of working in Spain is that the crews are so great. The people are fantastic, and the infrastructure is really sound,” says Mackie.
Spain can be shot as Spain, as was Mallorca on “Mad Dogs.” Equally, it can double for a broad gamut of foreign or fantasy settings.
On ‘The Crown,’ “we started up shooting in South Africa but ended up shooting in Spain,” Mackie recalls. Spanish locations, in fact, stood in for an Australian sheep farm, Athens and even Hollywood.
“We needed lots of different terrains, and we always managed to get them. Spain’s just that versatile,” she says. “When we shot ‘Mad Dogs,’ it felt like one of the first [modern-day] shoots in Spain. That was the beginning of it, really, for me. We all thought: ‘This really works.’ I can imagine Spain being a significant part of my ongoing career.”
“UAP”
“UAP,” a sci-fi thriller, could have shot multiple places in the world.
Starring Joel Courtney (“Kissing Booth”), Celeste O’Connor (“Ghostbusters: Afterlife”) and Charlie Evans (“Leave The World Behind”), the movie turns on former childhood friends’ celebrating a 4th of July reunion at Lake Tahoe, when an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon crash-lands nearby.
Randy Wayne and Talia Bella at Oklahoma-based Rebellium Films (“Wild Indian”), producers on “UAP,” weren’t looking for any specific locations when they decided to shoot in Spain, beyond mocking up Lake Tahoe.
What they did do was to help pioneer a new international business model in Spain for more modest U.S. shows than “No Body Problem,” linking to Federation Spain and Basque producer Eduardo Carneros who created a local based AIE – the Spanish equivalent of a Local Liability Corporation (LLC) – in order to tap into recently dramatically hiked tax credits in the Basque Country provinces of Alava and Bizkaia in Northern Spain.
“UAP” qualified for a 50% tax credit in Alava, which is “arguably the best tax credit in the world,” Wayne tells Variety. After structuring fees, the production will take home 33%-35% of that, he adds.
In October, Rebellium’s postpartum horror tale “The Beldham” world premiered at Spain’s Sitges Festival while its coming-of-age drama “The Book of Jobs” debuted at the Mill Valley Film Festival in the U.S. A third Rebellium production, “40 Dates & 40 Nights,” wrapped production this month in Houston.
“We’ve shot movies all over the U.S. We live in Tulsa. We love shooting in Tulsa. However, filming in the U.S. is becoming increasingly costly. We are spending less and less money on screen. Therefore, we decided to expand our knowledge and begin looking into tax breaks worldwide. We looked at 25 different tax breaks before deciding on the Basque Country,” Wayne explains.
Bella and Wayne, who run Rebellium Films, a production and services company in Oklahoma, narrowed their search down to 4 companies throughout Europe. “We loved them all. They’re all very smart. But we really hit it off with Federation Spain and the numbers worked.”
It helped in the case of Federation Spain that partner Juan Sola, Jaume Collet-Serra’s former producer-partner, is based in L.A, where he’s lived for 25 years.
Serving as FS’ points-person in Spain, Mark Albela worked as a producer in Spain on Ridley Scott’s “Exodus: Gods and Kings” and co-producer on “Sexy Beast,” “Sahara” and “Kingdom of Heaven.”
“UAP” takes place in the U.S. on Independence Day. Location manager Leigh Romero and production designer Mafe Mu?oz did “great work turning homes and landscapes into very American-looking places,” says Wayne.
Shooting from Nov. 11 in Alava, Bilbao, the capital of Bizkaia, and Getxo, up the Bay of Biscay coast from Bilbao, UAP will have a six-week shoot in Spain. The crew is 100% Spanish, including the DP (Hermes Marco), editor (in negotiations) and all of post-production.
“The depth of talent in Spain is impressive. The only people we bought in were five actors and the director,” says Wayne.
Scenes can be ambitious, such as one where a U.S.-style semi truck with a long nose barrels down a road toward an unknowing child. “We had VFX, SFX, Stunts, and Drone Ops,” says Wayne. “It went off without a hitch,” says Wayne.
Scenes can be ambitious such as one where a U.S.-style semi truck with a long nose barrels down a road toward an unknowing child. “We had VFX, SFX, stunts, and drone ops,” says Wayne. “It went off without a hitch.”
“The shoot has exceeded our expectations,” he says. He, Bella, and their child live in an apartment in Bilbao. “The most appealing aspect of staying in Bilbao is that everything is within walking distance. And there’s a lot to do and see. On the weekends, we’ve traveled to Valencia, Málaga, San Sebastián, and France. All of these places can be reached in less than two hours. You can’t get that in Oklahoma.
In March of next year, Rebellium plans to film a “high-budget movie with notable director and cast” in Bilbao, Romania, and New Jersey.
“‘UAP’ is sort of a test market for Spain.,” says Wayne. “Knowing we can film in Spain and have very high-quality crew and the cost of living versus where we live – we’re planning to make a lot more movies here in Spain,” he adds.
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