Game of Thrones was filmed all over the world, but its base of operations was in Northern Ireland. From Titanic Studios in Belfast to Tollymore Forest Park to Ballintoy Harbour, HBO filmed all over this country.
And because Game of Thrones was such a big hit, it inspired other studios to follow suit, turning Northern Ireland into a hub for film and TV production. For instance, the new movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves filmed extensively there; it even hired location manager Naomi Liston, who worked on all eight seasons of Thrones.
Speaking to The Daily Beast, Liston said that directors often her if Game of Thrones shot somewhere or other in Northern Ireland. Usually, she tells them the same thing: “Guys, there were eight seasons, 76 episodes, 10 years that we shot in Northern Ireland; what do you think? There isn’t much of a patch of Northern Ireland that we didn’t shoot on Game of Thrones, and it’s up to you to shoot it in a different way and turn it into something different.”
Overlap between Game of Thrones and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
The job of the Honor Among Thieves team, then, wasn’t to avoid Game of Thrones shooting locations, but to shoot them differently. And there was rather a lot of crossover, including:
- HBO built a giant King’s Landing set at Titanic Studios for the final season of Game of Thrones. As Liston put it, “We revamped the King’s Landing backlot set into Neverwinter,” the name of the big city in Honor Among Thieves. Both Game of Thrones and Honor Among Thieves made use of other sets in the Titanic Quarter, as well.
- Honor Among Thieves filmed at Castle Ward in in Strangford, Downpatrick; it’s where the paladin Xenk (Regé-Jean Page) makes his first appearance. On Game of Thrones, Castle Ward stood in for Winterfell; it’s where Jaime pushes Bran Stark out a window in the first episode.
- In Honor Among Thieves, the insecure wizard Simon (Justice Smith) tries to hone his magical abilities on a beach. For this scene, the team filmed at Ballintoy Harbour, which sometimes stood in for Dragonstone and the Iron Islands on Game of Thrones.
- Tollymore Forest Park, a public park that’s open to visitors even during shootings, was used for both Game of Thrones and Honor Among Thieves.
Of course, Honor Among Thieves filmed in some places where Game of Thrones didn’t shoot, but it’s hard to avoid overlap completely.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves shows off Game of Thrones locations in a “different light”
One way Honor Among Thieves made these look different is by filming them in bring sunshine rather than the rain and the snow. The city is called Neverwinter, after all; winter is never coming there.
“It was so lovely to be showing Northern Ireland in the summertime—in the hazy, beautiful sunshine,” Liston said. She’s excited to show Northern Ireland in a “different light—not cold and windy.”
You can see Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves in theaters now.
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