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Two-time Academy Award winner Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, Frost/Nixon), teamed up with writer Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Queen), on Rush, a spectacular big-screen re-creation of the merciless 1970s rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda. Everyone’s favourite scene in Love Actually - the bit where they show the arrivals hall at Heathrow Airport - was actually shot at Epsom Downs Racecourse. Another airport in the film was actually Sandown Park in Esher, which was transformed into Milwaukee International Airport – apparently, if you freeze frame as Colin is coming out of the doors of the airport, you can see the Sandown Park logo on the doors. This is mostly apparent in the sometimes dodgy direction work, though it can only be imagined that the director was doing his best with the little he had.
There's a bit of post-war xenophobia with the villains coming from an unnamed foreign country but looking an awful lot like Romany gypsy stereotypes. The noise of the sonic weapon, which we hear for lengthy sections of the film is extremely annoying. The character of Snowy really doesn't add much, other than reflecting how great Barton is and his obsession with getting a pint of Bitter. Appearing briefly as Dr Reeve’s village, A Matter of Life and Death stars one-time Puttenham resident David Niven as a British wartime aviator - blink and you’ll miss the picturesque village. Hollywood actress Sharon Stone was among the cast members who spent several days in the Founders Building at Royal Holloway which was used to double as a psychiatric Institute. Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law reprised their roles as Holmes and Watson respectively, with Guy Ritchie filming at Richmond Park, Hampton Court Palace in East Molesey, and Bourne Woods near Farnham, among other locations. Scenes from the fourth instalment of The Goblet of Fire were filmed on the banks on Virginia Water lake.Look closely at the final wedding scene and behind Renee Zellweger and co, and you’ll spot the pretty St James’s Church where 2007’s Surrey Life carol concert was also held. Steven Spielberg has been filming his adaption of War Horse on set in Chertsey and also location shooting at an abandoned Wisley airfield (trench scenes) and at Bourne Woods, Farnham (an army base). It's poor form not to start with the fact that this third film was the end of the run not because the films were unsuccessful, but because the star, Don Stannard, passed away in a traffic accident. It's quite the shame as he was still a young man and had the franchise run longer, there might have been more of a cultural impact from the character. The acting is again pretty terrible, never worse than in an appalling fight scenes. The story is much less interesting and involved than in the second film and to be honest, even at just over an hour it struggled to hold on to my attention. The ending is an anti-climax. After eight years of development, The Man Who Knew Infinity is finally filming with Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons and newcomer Devika Bhise starring. Patel will portray math genius Srinivasa Ramanujan and Jeremy Irons will play GH Hardy, who recognized Ramanujan’s brilliance. Shooting is also taking place at Trinity College, Cambridge — it’s said to be the first film to be shot at Trinity.
The result feels very much like a proto-James Bond adventure, with it's suave British hero (once again played by Don Stannard), a very Fleming-style villain in Fouracada (Sebastian Cabot), and a diabolical plot that sees the bad guys using a powerful sonic weapon of mass destruction to help their un-specified country to achieve world domination. There's even a femme fatale who turns ally in the form of Tina (Jean Lodge), and several scenes in which the antagonists have an opportunity to kill Barton once and for all, but instead opt to put him in a perilous situation from which he has a chance to escape. It makes one wonder whether Ian Fleming was inspired in some part by Barton when creating Bond. The beautiful St Michael’s was one of three churches used in this classic romantic comedy that propelled Hugh Grant to international fame. Another was St Peter and St Paul, the Saxon church at Albury Park, Albury.Like the original, it ran in 15-minute segments and was again accompanied by the familiar theme tune, the titles playing against an animated dagger and target motif. The production was blighted by financial troubles, though, and some critics said it was a mistake to try to resurrect the character. As the world celebrated Shakespeare’s 450th birthday in 2014, French Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard and actor Michael Fassbender headed to Elstead to film a new adaption of Macbeth at Hankley Common. With the latest imagining of Wonder Woman hitting cinema screens for the first time in spring 2016, as part of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the superheroine has also beeny working on war time scenes for her own headline feature in Farnham’s Bourne Wood.
Starring Jenny Agutter, Bob Hoskins and Lucy Drive, Outside Bet sees a life-long group of friends at the bad end of a redundancy pay-out and invest their savings into a racehorse. Scenes were shot at the Esher racecourse. World War Two vets travel to England for a reunion at their old base. Once there, one rekindles an old romance with an old flame. One of Surrey’s most picturesque villages, Shere, makes an appearance alongside Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr. Pop star turned director Madonna, filmed scenes for her two-tiered romantic drama focusing on the affair between King Edward VIII and American divorcée Wallis Simpson at the privately owned lakes. Starring Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman, Thor: The Dark World sees Bourne Wood host a battle between two kingdoms, featuring a ‘substantial amount of stunts, special effects and approximately 300 extras’. The story of the relationship between painter Dora Carrington and author Lytton Strachey in a World War One England, starring Emma Thompson, featured scenes shot at the Surrey beauty spot.Dystopian science fiction film featuring Clive Owen and Leatherhead’s own Michael Caine. The hideout of Jasper, played by Caine, was filmed in Bourne Woods.
The opening battle scene of Ridley Scott’s epic, starring Russell Crowe and former Surrey resident Oliver Reed, was filmed in Bourne Wood, near Farnham, where the wooded countryside provided the perfect substitute for the forests of Southern Germany. While some locals may have been interested in taking this one into their own hands, Delta Point in Croydon was put through a Hollywood-style destruction for this instalment of the multimillion-dollar Batman movie series. A romantic comedy directed by Clare Kilner, The Wedding Date starring Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney is based on the book Asking for Trouble by Elizabeth Young. It features St James’s Church in Shere for a wedding scene, as well as Chilworth Manor and Winkworth Arboretum near Godalming. We might not have any beaches in Surrey, but this didn’t stop the makers of this classic Carry On film using Frensham Ponds, to the south of Farnham, to represent the American coastline. Don Stannard, Bruce Walker, Sebastian Cabot, Jean Lodge, James Raglan, Humphrey Kent, Sidney Vivian, John Harvey, Morris Sweden
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Andrew Garfield (raised in Epsom and taking the lead role in Spiderman 3), Carey Mulligan (Oscar nominated former Woldingham School pupil) and a certain Keira Knightley (who attended Esher College) star. Scenes were also shot at Hampton Court House in East Molesey.
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