Da Vinci Code TV series shoots at Cootes
The producers of The Lost Symbol" found what they were looking for in a film location in Hamilton.
The show - also known as Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol" was shooting at The Arboretum on Old Guelph Road in Dundas this month.
Word is that scenes were shot along the trail beside Cootes Paradise in the Royal Botanical Gardens park during the week of July 12-17.
The show is based on Brown's 2009 novel and revolves around his famous character, Robert Langdon, who was portrayed in three blockbuster movies - The Da Vinci Code" (2006) Angels & Demons" (2009) and Inferno" (2016) - by Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard.
The TV show plot sees symbologist Langdon (Ashley Zukerman) hired by the CIA to solve a number of deadly puzzles when his mentor goes missing.
The book was eyed for a Hanks vehicle between 2010-2013. It was the third novel by Brown featuring Langdon and was followed by Inferno." The producers decided to make the latter book into the next Langdon film.
The idea to make it into the basis of a TV series surfaced in 2019 at NBC and the pilot was shot in the Toronto area, as well as Hamilton, last year. The pilot, titled Langdon," filmed scenes at Liuna Station.
The pilot was picked up this March by NBC for its Peacock streaming service. There has been no word yet on a Canadian station running it, but my prediction is it will wind up on the CTV Drama Channel.
The team was blown away by this pilot and its enormous potential to become a big, binge-worthy hit," said Susan Rovner, chair of NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, who was quoted on the Deadline news site on March 9.
Apart from Hamilton, the show has continued to film scenes in Toronto, as well as Oshawa. It is a co-production between CBS Studios, Universal Television Studios and Imagine Television Studios. Executive producers include Brown and Howard.
Zukerman was born in California, but grew up in Australia. He might be familiar to some viewers for appearing in 2019 on Designated Survivor" (the Kiefer Sutherland political thriller TV show that filmed in Hamilton) and Succession" in 2018-19. He won an Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Award for Best Actor in Television Drama for The Code" (2014). He played a troubled genius hacker.
The show also features British comedian Eddie Izzard, who was recently in the Second World War drama Six Minutes to Midnight" and Valorie Curry, who was in Veronica Mars" (2005-06) and Blair Witch" (2016). Izzard plays his mentor Peter Solomon and Curry plays his daughter Katherine.
The show will likely return to Hamilton. Filming is expected to last until October.
Christmas came early to Dundurn Castle.
The courtyard in front of the coach house was turned into a Christmas-themed market for the movie Say Yes to Christmas" last week. There were flowers, a sign advertising a visit from Santa and fake snow along a wall of the castle.
The film is apparently about a workaholic editor who returns to her hometown for Christmas, but can't shake her businesslike ways. Her old boyfriend wishes she would just say yes to Christmas. It has also filmed in Ancaster and Dundas.
In case you were upset you couldn't get a drink at the Corktown last week, there was a good reason. A horror-anthology Netflix series called 12 After Midnight" was filming at the Young Street landmark.
The show is from Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro, who has expressed pleasure in filming in Hamilton.
What would a week be without mentioning The Mayor of Kingstown," which filmed in the area again. The crime drama starring Jeremy Renner shot around Queenston Road and Parkdale Avenue in the east end.
Daniel Nolan is a freelance writer who writes about film for The Hamilton Spectator. He can be reached at dannolanwrites@gmail.com