Arizona filming for Transformers 5 'an anomaly’

The latest Transformers movie spent about two months in Arizona earlier this year prepping for a ten-day local shoot but a regional film commissioner labelled the visit “an anomaly”.

By Nick Goundry 4 Aug 2016

Arizona filming for Transformers 5 'an anomaly’
Transformers 5 on location

The latest Transformers movie spent about two months in Arizona earlier this year prepping for a ten-day local shoot but a regional film commissioner labelled the visit “an anomaly”.

Transformers: The Last Knight is the fifth in Paramount’s hugely successful action franchise. The film focussed its Arizona production around the city of Phoenix, partly to return to a location featured in the previous instalment, the Phoenix Business Journal reports.

Arizona is one of the few parts of the US that doesn’t have a filming incentive. Productions set in the south-western state tend to use neighbouring New Mexico as a double – including the true-life firefighter drama Granite Mountain – so Transformers was the first big-budget movie to visit in several years, albeit briefly.

“If we see another Transformers-type project in the next ten years, I would be surprised,” said Phil Bradstock, Phoenix’s film commissioner, in comments to the Journal. “They would much prefer to be in an incentivised state.”

Nonetheless, the Transformers team reportedly spent some $15m locally over the two-month period, expenditure that included 3,000 hotel room nights and the use of a firefighters’ training facility in Phoenix to test pyrotechnics.

The movie is currently shooting extensively in Detroit and elsewhere in Michigan where producers have secured a $20m filming incentive. Detroit has partly doubled for London although the team is also scheduled to film in the UK for real in the next few weeks.

For more on filming in Arizona see our production guide.

Images: @michaelbay via Instagram / Paramount Entertainment

Arizona is one of the few parts of the US that doesn’t have a filming incentive. Productions set in the south-western state tend to use neighbouring New Mexico as a double – including the true-life firefighter drama Granite Mountain – so Transformers was the first big-budget movie to visit in several years, albeit briefly.

“If we see another Transformers-type project in the next ten years, I would be surprised,” said Phil Bradstock, Phoenix’s film commissioner, in comments to the Journal. “They would much prefer to be in an incentivised state.”

Nonetheless, the Transformers team reportedly spent some $15m locally over the two-month period, expenditure that included 3,000 hotel room nights and the use of a firefighters’ training facility in Phoenix to test pyrotechnics.

The movie is currently shooting extensively in Detroit and elsewhere in Michigan where producers have secured a $20m filming incentive. Detroit has partly doubled for London although the team is also scheduled to film in the UK for real in the next few weeks.

For more on filming in Arizona see our production guide.

Images: @michaelbay via Instagram / Paramount Entertainment

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