Movies

Where Was ‘The Old Guard’ Filmed? The Entire Movie Was Shot in These Two Countries

Netflix's 'The Old Guard' is set in a number of international cities. But the movie was entirely filmed in just two countries.

by Mishal Ali Zafar

Published on July 19, 2020

2 min read

‘The Old Guard’ is based on a comic book

Netflix’s The Old Guard is based on Greg Rucka and illustrator Leandro Fernandez’s comic book of the same name. It is centered on a group of immortal soldiers who become the target of a medical corporation that plans to extract their powers for profit.

The film starts out with Andromache of Scythia aka Andy (Charlize Theron) reuniting with her teammates — Sebastian le Livre aka Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), Yusuf Al-Kaysani aka Joe (Marwan Kenzari), and Nicolo di Genova aka Nicky (Luca Marinelli). The team then heads to South Sudan, where they are ambushed, but survive.

Andy then heads to Afghanistan to recruit their newest immortal ally, Nile (Kiki Layne). From there, the team heads to Goussanville, France, where they use an old abandoned church as their hideout.

‘The Old Guard’ was filmed in only two countries

From France to South Sudan, The Old Guard takes its characters all over the world. But according to director Gina Prince-Bythewood, filming only took place in two countries — England and Morocco.

“We had to create three countries within Morocco,” she told Radio Times. “The beauty of Morocco is the landscape is so different throughout that we were able to realistically create Afghanistan, and realistically create South Sudan.”

The old church that was set in Goussainville was actually the All Saints Church in Shirburn, Oxfordshire. And the French pharmacy Andy visits was filmed in the town of Sandwich in Kent. Prince-Bythewood said she would have loved to take production to other countries, but was limited by the film’s budget.

“I had hoped to actually shoot in France, and we had scouted there and it was my first time there,” she said. “But when you don’t have the funds, which was shocking to me given how much we did have, it doesn’t matter about the creativity.”

The director tried to find beauty in each location

In an interview with Motion Pictures, Prince-Bythewood said that she could have used outdoor sets to mimic a lot of the places depicted in The Old Guard. But, ultimately, she decided to use the landscapes she had available to make it look more organic.

“In terms of the production design, we used so many natural locations as opposed to building them,” she said. “There’s just something to being in a real space, the natural history of it, the look of it, the feel of it — Finding that beauty in every area that we shot was essential.”

It’s safe to say that Prince-Bythewood’s approach worked. It was almost impossible to tell that the film was shot anywhere other than where its story took place. If the movie gets a sequel, it will be interesting to see which international cities fans will see next.