Amazon’s new blockbuster spy thriller seems to have all the bases covered. There are two highly bankable leads in the shape of Richard Madden, of Game of Thrones and Bodyguard fame and hotly tipped as a contender for the new James Bond, and Priyanka Chopra Jonas, the Bollywood superstar who has fronted US series Quantico. Executive producers are the Russo brothers, directors of Avengers: Infinity War, among other giant successes. And there has been little expense spared.
Madden and Chopra Jonas play agents Mason Kane and Nadia Sinh, whose past life in the shadowy Citadel organisation has been wiped from their memory. They’re awakened by tech-geek spymaster Bernard Orlick, played by screen legend Stanley Tucci (the wonderful Lesley Manville is also in a supporting role), to fight the evil forces of Manticore. The rest is fast-cut action, lots of intrigue, a little romance, and glorious scenery.
While this sounds like the recipe for a classic binge-watch hit, Citadel’s ambition goes beyond that: this is just our introduction to a new entertainment universe, Marvel-style. Other franchises will focus on different Citadel agents to come, with the Italian and Indian versions already up and running. Amazon’s commitment is such that this expansion is still on course despite a troubled start for the “mothership” series we’re seeing first, which started shooting during Covid and then ran into what The Hollywood Reporter termed “cost overruns” and “differences in vision” that helped ensure its status as one of the most expensive shows ever produced.
Even before delays, the scale and budget were vast even for the streaming era. Location manager Bill Darby, whose CV includes action pics like National Treasure and The Mummy, described it as “unprecedented. We’re making a production on a feature film scale; it’s not TV anymore”, while Madden told Vanity Fair, “We’re not just creating a story, we’re creating this world that’s spanning countries and continents.” Here’s an introduction to some places Citadel will be taking you in its first season.
Atlanta
Although they’ve already confirmed that they’ll be moving to California for Season 2, the Russos chose Atlanta as the base for Citadel. The Georgia capital has been a centre for film and TV for a decade now, and it’s here that the brothers made films including Avengers: Endgame and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The attraction was the state’s varied landscape, which means it can stand in for several different locations around the world: “From north to south, the state has a really diverse geography, and the town itself has great new architecture and old architecture,” as Joe Russo explained at a press conference.
Valencia
This vibrant city on Spain’s east coast has become a popular filming location, with shows from Westworld to Dr Who and films such as Uncharted and Red Notice attracted by its mix of the old and new.
Like many productions, Citadel filmed in the futuristic Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, the futuristic museum complex opened in 1998, home to the amazing Hemisfèric, a glass-walled planetarium that seems to rise from the water, and the harp-like Assut de l’Or bridge. They also took in the Ciutat Vella (Old Town) for scenes embracing the city’s more traditional side. Here, the filming involved locals in traditional dress enacting the Falles festival, where giant puppets are burned in the town’s squares at the end of five days of celebrations.
Filming also took place in the surrounding countryside, with shoots at Villahermosa del Río, a naturally dramatic area of rocks and rivers to the north, and the Tous reservoir to the south-west, the site of a famous flooding disaster in 1982.
Slovenia
For Citadel’s spectacular Bond-challenging snow and ski sequences, the production headed to the lofty Kanin Mountains, a ski resort on the Italian border at 2,300m, with views of the Alps beyond and the Adriatic Sea 100km to the south. Filming also took place south of Kanin on Stol Mountain near Kobarid, a hiking and paragliding destination that provided rugged peaks in the Lord of the Rings mould.
United Kingdom
While Atlanta may have been the base for Citadel, the UK beat the USA hands down for the sheer number of locations used. Filming started in London, with a tense scene between Madden and Chopra Jonas shot in Kensington Gardens and an appearance by the Royal Albert Hall, before moving south to one of Surrey’s most significant contributions to cinema, Bourne Wood. This forest featured in Gladiator in 2000 and has appeared in Captain America: The First Avenger, the 2010 Robin Hood and HBO series Band of Brothers, among many others. For Citadel, it’s the site of a lengthy action sequence, standing in for the slopes of the Alps in Italy.
Filming also took place in Birmingham, with a violent street protest filmed close to Chamberlain Square, home to the City Museum and Art Gallery, with more than 400 extras involved. Another Midlands location is the spectacular Harlaxton Manor, near Grantham in Lincolnshire. This expansive and fanciful country house dates back to the Victorian era but was modelled as a Baroque take on the Elizabethan style by rich eccentric Gregory Gregory. Bought in the early 20th Century by American shaving cream magnate Violet Van der Elst, it’s now a branch of the University of Evansville, Indiana, but often moonlights as a film location, with credits including the 1999 horror remake The Haunting and a 2020 adaptation of The Secret Garden.
A spectacular building of another era, Basingstoke’s Mountbatten House, also features. This sprawling 1970s office building was nicknamed “the Hanging Gardens of Basingstoke” because of its impressive roof garden; now being remodelled, it appears in Citadel as a hospital.
Finally, Citadel also visits Kent. Filming took place at Ramsgate and also at two coastal beauty spots: Samphire Hoe, the country park west of Dover that was created with chalk excavated from the building of the Channel Tunnel, and Abbot’s Cliff, part of the famed White Cliffs, where the views onto the English Channel are on a scale large enough even for Citadel.
Citadel streams on Amazon Prime Video from 28 April 2023