Ohmigosh: the 007 sound stage at Pinewood caught fire over the weekend

[dianeduane]

Not completely destroyed, it seems...but it's going to take a while to get it back into shape, I'm sure. It was one of the world's largest sound stages, after all. (Not sure if it was the largest.)

The fire in the corrugated metal warehouse-like stage wiped out three different sets that had been transformed into Venice for several final scenes in the new Bond film Casino Royale.

One of them was a house that tilted into the water with the help of a complicated hydraulics system, which used four specially-made valves of which there are only eight in the world.

The valves had been flown into England under armed guard from America and production bosses were yesterday waiting to get the all clear to get onto the set to see if they had survived the fierce fire that took two hours to get under control.

The Beeb, I suppose unavoidably, can't resist adding at the end of the article:

No-one would say if they had seen a short, bald man with a scar running down the right side of his face and carrying a white cat running from the scene on Sunday.

 

Comments

[robotech-master.livejournal.com]

It's funny, the enemies James Bond has. The last time the "007 soundstage" was demolished, it was destroyed by unicorns. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089469/trivia)

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sure the Bond franchise are rather happy it didn't happen during filming. Imagine having to rebuild Venice.

[anamin.livejournal.com]

Oh no. I wonder if this will delay the filming for a time?

[robotech-master.livejournal.com]

The articles say it happened after filming had ended and the sets had broken down. They'll need to rebuild the soundstage for use in future movies (as they did after it was destroyed by unicorns) but it shouldn't delay the film itself.

[anamin.livejournal.com]

O, right. Leave it to me not to read the article. Sorry, didn't mean to come across as stupid.

[robotech-master.livejournal.com]

Well, it's easy to miss. I did RTFA, but still missed it until someone else pointed it out to me.

[badger.livejournal.com]

If I recall correctly, flooding in Prague during the filming of _League of Extraordinary Gentlemen_ destroyed the large, highly expensive sets for the Venice scenes, causing significant cost overruns and production delays.
Perhaps there is something about Venice that does not approve of imitations....

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

That's also where Neil Gaiman's Stardust was filming, but apparently they'd just wrapped also.

http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2006/07/burning-stage.html

So it's probably big problems for the film(s) scheduled to use the facilities next, rather than the two that had just finished. I have no idea what those films would be.

A revelation of sorts...

[dewline.livejournal.com]

So it seems that the Times has a sense of humour about itself as an institution after all.

Most reassuring.

[buran.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, terrorists SO want to steal valves … and we waste police time on this?