I mean, sure, it’s not as population dense as the USA, or Mexico, but Canada is huge, your people are nice, you have some of the best entertainment companies on the planet (namely Cirque du Soleil and Pornhub), your natural resources and attractions are unbelievable and your actors are the best (especially the BSG/Chronicles of Riddick cast).
And yet, as an Italian with an international perspective (lived abroad for the last 16 years and visited the USA and South America repeatedly), I have been not “Canada-aware” for most of my life.
I get it that you are not boasting like your neighbors (and that alone makes you better than them imho), but how come that I was left to realize only today that the Manitoba flour I used to make pizza all my life takes its name from one of your provinces, while I know about all the shitty pizzas the US made up in a century.
Same thing goes for Latin American countries, even the ones I never visited, like Mexico or Argentina.
I shall visit soon and I hope you can take the chance to teach me more in the meanwhile.
The Canadian film industry is so huge that a great majority of ‘Hollywood’ films have at least part of the movie shot in Canada. Night at the Museum (all of them) was a big one that very few people realize was shot in Canada. I Robot, also parts of it shot here. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Chronicles of Riddick (all of them) was shot in Canada. The list goes on and on and on. The reason why so few Canadians recognize Canadian cities and settings in the American movies is that the sets are aways ‘Americanized’ - American flags, American money, American license plates, American road signs, American brands, American store branding, American iconography. Even if you knew it was shot in Canada, you would hardly recognize it as Canadian. The sets are purposely designed to look American. Even when it is supposed to be a Canadian city in the movie.
Pitch Black was shot in Australia… I was at a bar in Coober Pedy (the only bar in town, I think) stepped out for a smoke and there’s the spaceship from Pitch Black just sitting in the parking lot LOL.
Pitch Black was indeed shot mostly in Australia. It was the next two that were shot in Canada. I forgot that Pitch Black was part of the Chronicles of Riddick franchise, it had so little in common with them except Vin D. Almost nothing in the story line followed through the next two, it was a stand-alone movie. I should have said ‘both of them’ instead of ‘all of them’. Maybe the next one will be filmed in Canada as well.
I don’t know about that… the primary motivation of Riddick in the second one was to help the girl from Pitch Black. She’s in the prison mentioned in Pitch Black because she wanted to get eyes like Riddick had, which was something she asked about in Pitch Black. He finds out where she is from the priest from the first one. The Necromonger plotline was new, but that plotline and the prison plotline felt like they were from different movies.The Necromonger plotline was abandoned in the third movie (which was disappointing since I liked that part) and the third movie has more in common with Pitch Black than the previous Chronicles of Riddick movie.
I think it’s more accurate to say the Necromonger plotline in the second movie was the outlier in the series. Which is unfortunate since I would’ve like to see where that went, but it wasn’t a good fit for a “Vin Diesel is an awesome baddass” kind of movie.
The only connection between the two (or three or maybe four) movies is to promote Vin D’s public persona as a ‘badass action figure’. The franchise is all about Vin D, not anything related to a plot.
The franchise tag ‘Chronicles of Riddick’, or even the promotion of the character ‘Riddick’, did not jell until the second movie. I tis like ‘The First World War’ only became ‘the First…’ when the Second World War started. Without the second, there would be no purpose for the term ‘First’.
If you had to wear the ‘Necromonger’ costume, you would know why it was impractical to do another movie featuring these creatures.
That just brought back a memory for me. I remember a career day or something like that at school and one of my classmates brought his aunt who worked on that movie. She showed us some early pre-sfx footage she had of the t-rex chase where it was just a tennis ball on a stick. Definitely not something that could happen today, but that was before every kid had a camera on them at all times.
The primate in that movie was every bit as obnoxious in real life as it was in the movie. The handlers had their hands full with that one. Lots of work for the costumer who had to do the laundry.
But that tennis ball on a stick was actually part of the stock publicity footage. I remember viewing it as well.
This would’ve been the (school)year before the movie came out, 2005/6. I suppose it’s possible it was publicly available at the time. It doesn’t really matter, it was just a cool memory from decades ago. I hope it didn’t come across as a classic “my uncle works at Nintendo” kind of comment.
To be clear, I didn’t say ‘publicly available’, I said ‘stock publicity footage’. It gets distributed to various industry connections, footage that might go into movie trailers, footage that might be used for ‘behind the scenes’ footage on the DVD. No worries about the “come across as a classic “my uncle works at Nintendo” kind of comment.” Classic or not, my daughter actually DID work as a truck costumer on that movie. I believe she is credited in the IMDB for that movie.
One historic district in Winnipeg regularly stands in for pre-fire era Chicago.
And various other parts of the city can easily act like many mid-west American cities.
One of the malls here hosts the shooting of a hallmark channel Christmas movie almost every summer.
It is absolutely fascinating to visit the ‘circus’ - the staging area for all of the set trucks and equipment trucks, if you can get past the security. I remember one set in downtown Hamilton, Ontario back a few years, where they ‘blew up’ a car after a car chase. On the main street through a few blocks of downtown Hamilton. The thing is, they ‘blew up’ that car several times, in several takes. They also did the car chase in several ‘rehearsal’ takes before the actual ‘take’. Fascinating seeing the same cars weaving through the same traffic time after time, each one exactly the same. Speed through the scene, stop, back up, and do it all over. Each time increasing the speed. Stunt men hanging out the window. All the street signs changed to American streets. Even the background ‘advertising’ billboards were changed to American brands. Strange seeing a billboard for an American brand in downtown Hamilton. That was before SFX. The shoot was at night, no traffic, but the lights they brought in made it as bright as day. They needed their own generators to produce enough power for the huge banks of lights. All for a few seconds of actual movie.