George Clooney begins UK shoot on The Boys in the Boat

Filming begins this week on The Boys in the Boat at the new Winnersh Film Studios in Berkshire, directed by George Clooney and Grant Heslov.

Although the studios officially opened last year, approved planning permission was only granted retrospectively earlier this month.

From MGM and Smokehouse Pictures, (Clooney and Heslov’s production banner), The Boys in the Boat is based on the 2013 novel by Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

It explores the events of 1936 when the University of Washington men’s rowing team, as the event’s clear underdogs, astonished the world by taking the gold medal. The current screenplay is from Mark L Smith. Callum Turner, Joel Edgerton and Jack Mulhern star.

Winnersh Film Studios is the second film studio to be opened by Stage Fifty, with Farnborough Film Studios having opened last year.

The latter has already hosted filming on two major Hartwood Films dramas, Inside Man and The Devil’s Hour, both of which shot at Farnborough from June last year.