Solo: A Star Wars Story and Film:New Forest
Film:New Forest, New Forest District Council’s (NFDC) partnership with Creative England to encourage filming to the area, is celebrating a successful second year on the release date of Solo: A Star Wars Story which had scenes shot at Fawley.
Star Wars is one of the most successful movie franchises of all time, and with the release of the latest instalment, Solo: A Star Wars Story, (which tells the story of the young Han Solo, how he formed a close friendship with wookiee Chewbacca and came to own iconic spacecraft the Millennium Falcon) the New Forest has a slice of its history. In 2017 Disney/Lucas Film used Fawley Power Station as a backdrop for some scenes set in Corellia, with the cast and crew being in the New Forest for 25 days.
“We could never have afforded, nor had the space, to build a set that had so much technical depth within it,” said Neil Lamont, the movie’s production designer. “Once we had found Fawley and it gave us the concrete structures, the broken-down piping, the general dirty and rusty feel we wanted, the location very much became a foundation to how we imagined the rest of Corellia.”*
Cllr Michael Harris, Portfolio Holder for Economic Development at NFDC, said “This project alone injected just over £1 million to the local economy, with the total brought in to the area to date from the Film:New Forest partnership standing at over £3 million”**. And after all, this is what our filming project is all about, boosting our local economy. As Hans Solo himself said, “Look, I ain’t in this for your revolution, and I’m not in it for you Princess. I expect to be well paid. I’m in it for the money.”
Star Wars isn’t the only filming project as, thanks to the increased range of filming locations added to the Creative England database, the district has been considered by a number of productions looking to film in the English regions.
Property owners can register their locations and buildings as potential filming locations and film makers can get an idea of what the area has to offer in our short film ‘Through the Wardrobe’.
Image: Jonathan Olley/Lucasfilm
*From http://www.kftv.com/news/2018/05/16/solo-star-wars-movie-films-in-canary-islands
**Based on figures supplied by Creative England and approved by BFI & Production Guild