Page 12 - AFM 2001 DIARY_full done

PAGE10 BERLIN • LOSANGELES • MILAN • FOYER • CANNES • TOKYO • LONDON DIARY
LEAVESDEN FLYINGHIGH
How007andObi-WanKenobi paved thewayfor anewstudiocomplex
hey may have been famously
set on screen in a galaxy far, Tfar away but technically the
four Star Wars films have sprung to life
less than an
hour north of
London. More than
twenty years ago writer-
director George Lucas
gave Elstree an interna-
tional shot in the arm
when he created his
blockbuster sci-fi trilo-
gy. Now the complex
production of the
newest slice of his stun-
ning saga, Star Wars:
Episode 1 - The Phantom
Menace, has helped con-
firm and further consolidate the repu- tation of nearby Leavesden as Britain’s latest major studio facility.
Lucasfilm’s The Phantom Menace arrived to begin production on the 286-acre site in January 1997 almost exactly two years after another, per- haps even more enduring, movie monolith had first helped breathe life back into a disused Rolls Royce facto- ry at Leavesden Aerodrome where
once Wellingtons, Mosquitos and Halifaxes were manufactured.
Searching for the ideal location to film James Bond’s 17th adventure,
Goldeneye - the first to star Pierce Brosnan as 007 - Eon Productions knew the instant they set foot on the site that everything about its immense interior and exterior space seemed tailor-made for the megadol- lar movie’s ambitious sets.
Eon leased the site for a year and funded its initial conversion purely on a one-off basis for Goldeneye. It was during those pre-
production months leading up to the start of shooting in January 1995 that Daniel Dark first walked into Eon’s offices at Leavesden. Dark, thir- tysomething son of flamboyant British producer John Dark, had been working in Spain for three years when he decided he wanted to come back and work again in the UK.
“I remember seeing this cav- ernous place for the first time.