13. November 2002
Filming James Bond in Iceland saved monumental cost
The 20th installment of the James Bond film series, the longest running and most successful film franchise in cinematic history, provides a glimpse of Iceland, a land of fire and ice that is only a five-hour flight from New York and three-hour flight from London.
Die Another Day is shot in various countries such as Maui, Hawaii and Iceland. The climax of the film is a dramatic confrontation between Bond and the villain, taking place in Iceland. “The trickiest sequence was Bond’s showdown with Zao, villain Gustav Graves’ loyal henchman. Director Lee Tamahori decided to put the car-to-car battle on ice, on the frozen lagoon outside Graves' Icelandic lair.” (Time Magazine). The remarkable car chase between Bond's Aston Martin Vanquish V12, Zao's Jaguar XKR was filmed on a glacial lagoon called Jökulsárlón, on Iceland’s southeast coast.
“The ice chase sequence was amazing“ second unit director Vic Armstrong says. “The whole sequence flows in a continuous movement – it’s like a ballet.”
The team needed 30 cm thick ice but at the start they only got rain. Some of the team even went to Alaska to scout out possible locations, “but the cost of getting everyone and everything to a location there would have been monumental." (Time Magazine). But finally it started to freeze and the weather stayed cold for the three weeks the crew filmed in Iceland.
