London Thames Gateway on the Silver Screen
If you live or work in the London Thames Gateway region and you've visited a cinema recently, chances are you will have seen your very own neighbourhood on the silver screen.
Our region is a hotbed of creative activity, from jewellery design to film studios and storage facilities for the BBC's Daleks, and over the decades hundreds of films, TV shows and music videos have been made here.
To celebrate the news that Tower Hamlets Council has teamed up with Canary Wharf Group (CWG) to produce a map of their local area, we took a look at some of the creative activity going on.
Filming in the region doesn't just mean crews visit our vast array of outdoor sites - one of the UK's busiest studios, at 3 Mills, covers twenty acres and has been home to Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises (2007), Ken Loach's very recent These Times, as well as 28 Weeks Later (2007), Enduring Love (2004), Sunshine (2007) and Brick Lane (2003), to name but a few. 3 Mills was also the shooting location for advertising and music videos for many diverse projects, including the H&M campaign; KanYe West, Daft Punk, The Feeling, and Kasabian.
Some of British TV and films' most well known props and sets are stored at C&M Apostolides Ltd, who offer specialist storage services at Dagenham Dock to a range of clients including the Dr Who Daleks. See link for more about the Dalek's home.
Your Neighbourhood on the Silver Screen
Tower Bridge
Biggles fans will know Tower Bridge well, but it has also been used, once only, for a death-defying Thunderbirds (2004) stunt which involved flying a helicopter underneath.
Greenwich
Other well known outdoor film locations include the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, which is often transformed from museum and university into, among others, 17th-century London streets, Buckingham Palace and Whitehall. The famous college dome was also used as a stand-in Pentagon in Washington DC for the 1992 Hollywood hit Patriot Games, starring Harrison Ford.
The second wedding from Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) was filmed in the College Chapel - and is where Rowan Atkinson's vicar makes his "holy goat" gaffe as he tries to marry the happy couple.
The view from Greenwich Park is of course world famous, and hundreds of TV productions and feature films have been shot there, including The Go Between (1970), Longitude (2000), and Layer Cake (2004), as well as the BBC series Spooks - also shot in nearby Greenland Dock.
Docklands and Canary Wharf
Docklands has been used as a film location for decades and various phases of development have allowed for it to be transformed from apocalyptic Full Metal Jacket (1987), to another doomsday saga, 28 Weeks Later (2007), as well as Basic Instinct Two (2006) and The Constant Gardener (2005).
Interestingly, in The Long Good Friday (1979) Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) decides to buy the decaying Thames waterfront and develop it in time for the 1988 Olympics.
The full list of Hollywood blockbusters filmed here is huge, but highlights include:
- Patriot Games (1992)
- Spiceworld (1997)
- The World Is Not Enough (1999)
- Bollywood Queen (2002)
- Johnny English (2003)
- Love Actually (2003)
- The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
- Layer Cake (2004)
- The Constant Gardener (2005)
- Green Street Hooligans (2005)
- Revolver (2005)
- Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007).
New map walks from Tower Hamlets and the Canary Wharf Group
Tower Hamlets and Canary Wharf Group have just released a brand new set of self-guided walks for you to take around key Docklands sites. There are six different areas, matched to their silver screen characters, from gangsters to love stories.
We took a look at the six routes:
West India Quay - Gangsters
Our route begins at West India Quay DLR station, taking you past the Marriott hotel at 1 West India Quay, where gangster Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon) dangles Daniel Craig over the edge of the unfinished tower in Layer Cake (2004). Your Gangster tour then moves on to North Dock, where in the classic British gangster movie The Long Good Friday (1980) (Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren), the gang boss moors his yacht.
You soon move on to see the pale yellow roof of Billingsgate Market, one of the locations for 28 Days Later (2002) and the James Bond film The World is not Enough (1999). This spot doesn't just attract Hollywood blockbusters-TV series Bad Girls and The Girl in the Café (starring Bill Nighy and Kelly McDonald) were also filmed nearby.
Canary Wharf - Spies and Style
This second route brings us to some of the most famous sites you'll see on the silver screen. 28 Weeks Later (2007), the sequel to cult and more than scary hit 28 Days Later (2002), was filmed at Canary Wharf in September 2006. The Canary Wharf estate represented District 1, the ‘clean' area of London which has been cleared of the Rage virus. In a financial deal becoming more common across London boroughs, the location fee Canary Wharf Group (CWG) charged for this filming was used to engage local people in movie projects such as creating the ‘CWG 28 Hours Later Challenge' in partnership with Tower Hamlets Council. The challenge teams created six very different films, with the winning film becoming the trailer for the hugely popular East End Film Festival.
The Spies and Style route now takes you past One Canada Square, the tallest building in Britain at 800 feet (244 metres). One Canada Square featured as headquarters of the fiendish French villain, Sauvage (John Malkovich) in spoof spy comedy Johnny English (2003).
In The Bourne Supremacy (2004), Canary Wharf was the CIA's London monitoring station, which spots that Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) had used his passport in Italy.
One Canada Square has also appeared in many TV adverts and the TV show, The Apprentice.
Moving on to some more culinary film activity, the film Batman Begins (2005) was partly shot at Canary Wharf restaurant, Plateau. If you go to Plateau, ask the General Manager about his part in the film which he is very proud of - but blink and you'll miss it! Jude Law and Sienna Miller also shot their Alfie (2004) New Year's Eve party scenes at 20 Canada Square.
Reuters Plaza and Canary Wharf tube - love stories
Reuters Plaza plays a key role in the award winning film The Constant Gardener (2005),
when Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes) tries to find out how his beloved wife Tessa (Rachel Weisz) was killed. Here he meets up with his murdered wife's cousin - one of the few remaining people he can trust.
Again, you can see this area on the small screen, as the clocks in the plaza are also featured in the BBC News 24 and BBC London news titles.
Further on, to your left is Canary Wharf's stunning Jubilee Line station. It doubled as a secret spy lair for Agent Cody Banks II: Destination London (2004) starring Frankie Muniz. Colin Firth also filmed a scene for the British blockbuster Love Actually (2003), struggling down the station's escalators laden with Christmas shopping. In the apocalyptic thriller 28 Days Later (2002), Jim (Cillian Murphy) and his fellow survivors run through the deserted station.
Heron Quays - stunts and car crashes
The opening scenes of Basic Instinct 2 (2006) were filmed here, although Canary Wharf's filming accolades go back much further .
Canary Wharf has played three real life roles in the last 40 years - thriving port, industrial wasteland and now modern city. The Bollywood film Bollywood Queen (2002) was also filmed around the estate in Canary Wharf. Wood Wharf was used in the film Patriot Games (1996) for the scene where Sean Bean's terrorist character blows up a police van and two unmarked cars to escape custody, with the driving filmed here and the explosions carried out in the Royal Docks.
South Quay and Millwall Dock - shaken, not stirred
Millwall Inner Dock was the scene for many of the amazing boat chases and water based stunts in the James Bond film The World is Not Enough (1999). Bond starts one such jet race at Vauxhall Cross, the real MI5 HQ, reaching Tower Bridge in under a minute (with a little help from the editing suite), then turns south into Java Wharf, which is actually a dead end. Somehow (again, with help of clever editing), Bond makes it across to Millwall Inner Dock on the Isle of Dogs, where his route is blocked by an explosion, so he takes a detour west of Canary Wharf pier. From here, he continues his chase which finally ends by the O2 (formally the Millennium Dome).
Trinity Buoy Wharf
Trinity Buoy Wharf is a popular location for film makers. The spectacular views over the river and the O2, alongside an industrial feel and London's only lighthouse, mean this is a flexible spot for different genres. Sienna Miller and Jude Law were seen partying in their New York style loft here in the 2004 remake of Alfie. Pierce Brosnan came crashing out of a restaurant (The Chainstore) as James Bond in The World is Not Enough (1999) and Martin Kemp played the bad guy for British film Gangster No 1 (2000).
No visit to Trinity Buoy Wharf would be complete without going to the all American 'Fat Boys Diner', where you can sit in the same seat as Gwyneth Paltrow in the 1998 hit Sliding Doors.
Gritty football movie Green Street (2006), starring Elijah Wood, exposes the ugly side of football and contains a graphic fight scene filmed on the riverside.
Trinity Buoy Wharf has also hosted Jose Gonzalez, Pete Doherty and others to film T4's music show Transmission in 2006. It was also the location for Derren Brown's ‘stunt' with a loaded gun for the controversial Russian Roulette show.
See here for more information and map details.
We'll be expanding this section soon to cover more areas within the London Thames Gateway region - if you would like to send in suggestions for your neighbourhood, just get in touch at: info@gtlon.co.uk