Hollywood likes to film in Canada, because “America’s Hat” (as Canada is known on “funny” T-shirts here) looks reasonably enough like America, while having a weaker currency. It’s so much cheaper to film there that even “Chicago” filmed in Ontario, despite having a title inspired by an undeniably American city. “Rumble in The Bronx” filmed in Canada too (look for mountains in the background of a golfing scene), as did “Battle in Seattle” and “Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould” (a Canadian film, but still).
Not too long ago, Canada’s dollar was tied with the American dollar, which did a real number on book prices there and sent Hollywood into a panic: if Canada couldn’t stand in for America, who could?
Luckily, the Canadian dollar eventually plummeted back to where it belongs (though it could stand to be a little lower, in my opinion). But now that we’ve seen it rival the American dollar, can we trust it to stay put?
No. That’s why I nominate Iceland to be Hollywood’s next Canada.
No doubt Iceland is a little weird looking compared to America. They don’t have forests there, they have black lava fields. If you go swimming in what appears to be a placid lake in Iceland, you’re liable to be shot into the sky when a geyser erupts. But if filmmakers could transform British Columbia into the most badass borough in New York in “Rumble in The Bronx,” surely Reykjavik could pass for Manhattan.
Clint Eastwood already caught onto this, filming the Japan scenes in “Flags of Our Fathers” on Iceland’s rocky black sand beaches. And this was when Iceland was still expensive. Now that Iceland is half as expensive for Americans as it was previously, Hollywood would have to be pretty superficial and fearful of trying something new to just keep filming in Canada.
It’s not like the movies would have to take place in Iceland. There are plenty of locations there that could be faked to look like America. Okay, I lied about one thing. Reykjavik, with only one main street and an average building height of two stories (if you count basements as a story), probably can’t work as Manhattan. But it kind of looks like Brooklyn:
See? Small buildings, but pretty densely packed together. It’s even got the East River there. True, it’s mountains instead of Manhattan on the other side of it, but you could give one of the characters a line about how Central Park overgrew its little plot and took over the rest of the island.
If you really must have a Manhattan scene, there are a couple of spots in Reykjavik that might work.
This kind of looks like the U.N. building, except that only one of the flag poles has a flag, and it’s an Icelandic flag. A good prop man could easily fix that.
This is the Cathedral Clock Tower, Reykjavik’s tallest building. When it’s under construction, it almost looks like The Empire State Building. As for the crucifix on top, a character could say something about New York electing its first Christian mayor.
Behind the scaffolding, it kind of looks like the clock tower from Back to the Future, if you’re filming another Back to the Future sequel.
If your name is Frank Darabont and you’re doing yet another Stephen King adaptation, Iceland’s Gullfoss makes a serviceable rocky coast of Maine. Have your prop guy construct a lighthouse, and you’re set. But seriously, man, there are other authors!
If you’re making a horror film, Iceland’s whale slaughterhouses are famous for creating literal oceans of blood. And any good horror film has to end with an ocean of blood. (Photo credit: The Internet)
Filming a Western? Iceland’s got the Wild West covered, if you don’t mind tiny horses and a little snow on those mountains. (Photo credit: The Internet)
Bet you thought this was Alaska. Nope, it’s Iceland. (Again, photo from The Internet)
Once America erects a wall between itself and Mexico, it will probably look something like this. Filmmakers love to make movies about walls, since they symbolize our alienation from one another.
Hey, what’s this photo of the FDR monument in Washington, D.C. doing on a blog about Iceland? Surprise, surprise, this is Iceland, albeit in front of the Viking Museum, the perfect place to film Hollywood’s next potboiler about a murderous American president.
Film all your sports scenes at Iceland’s literal seat of government, the Alþingi.
Haukadalur is a pretty obvious stand-in for Yellowstone national park.
Use your imagination, and this is a convincing Grand Canyon, only much less dangerous if any stunt men happen to fall off of it.
I’ve never been to Lake Erie, but I always imagined it looked something like this.
And finally, if you’re doing an art film, puffin skulls could be a good symbol of the decay of values in modern America. (Photo credit: Gunni Lamb)
There is one problem with filming in Iceland, and that’s the lack of normal night and day schedules there. In the summer, you can pretty much only film day scenes, and in the winter, nothing but night scenes. But again, a line of dialog can take care of this. “God, when will this eclipse ever end?” if you’re filming in winter. And if you’re filming in the summer: “Ummm, okaaay, isn’t night supposed to be, like, dark or something? Ugh, whatever. Life is so lame.”
Now you’re ready to film in Iceland!
