The Last Kingdom producers talk about shooting the show for these past five seasons, and how they managed to make it a smooth experience.
Earlier this month, Netflix dropped the fifth and final season of The Last Kingdom, and it was pretty great. And now, the cast and crew have wrapped on the Last Kingdom movie Seven Kings Must Die, which well and truly brings the saga of Uhtred of Bebbanburg to a close.
“It was the first time we didn’t have another show that we were putting into production in Hungary,” producer Nigel Marchant told Variety. “It really is an end of an era.”
Hungary, it ends up, is where The Last Kingdom has been shooting for years, on account of its open environments, skilled crew, and financial incentives. Given that The Last Kingdom never had the budget of other medieval-esque shows like The Witcher and Game of Thrones, that last one helped a lot. “We have done this on a price,” said Carnival Films chairman Gareth Neame. “We didn’t have peanuts – we had a sizable budget – but not on the same level as those other shows.”
"The state of Hungary was quite pioneering in its tax credit for high-end television productions,” he says. “It’s among the most effective [rebates in Europe] and, at the same time, relatively low cost, so you’re really maximizing all your money on the screen."
In fact, Carnival had such a positive experience making The Last Kingdom in Hungary that it returned to shoot three seasons of the historical drama Jamestown, helping build up the country’s already robust filmmaking infrastructure. “We brought a massive amount of inward investment into Hungary,” said Neame, estimating that The Last Kingdom has contributed more than $160 million to the economy over the past decade. “We’re really proud of that commitment.”
The crew for the show was often local, which not only helped the country’s economy but ensured that everyone was invested in the show. “The local crew there felt ownership,” Neame said. “We didn’t just come in, and all the heads of departments are English-speaking, and it’s our show and they just work on it. This was a full total partnership between the Brits in the crew and the Hungarians, we feel very proud of what we all achieved.”
Filming on Seven Kings Must Die has ended, although we don’t yet know when the movie will premiere on Netflix.
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