With the release of the new James Bond movie SPECTRE, Austria’s Tirol region where the dramatic snow scenes were shot has released more information on the filming of the 24th film in the franchise that began more than 50 years ago and has seen numerous ski associations down through the decades.
One of the highest mountain roads in the Alps, a mountain lift station that looks like curved ribs of steel and a design restaurant in the shape of a giant ice cube: the ski resort of Sölden in the Ötztal valley of Tirol, Austria, provided a complete mix of everything they needed for one of the main action scenes in the new James Bond film.
Spectre which will hit the big screen in the UK two weeks today on Monday 26th October 2015, a week or so before the rest of the world, saw its snow action scenes shot against a backdrop of the Ötztaler Alps in Sölden and the mountain village of Obertilliach in East Tirol.
Speaking on set in Sölden, Associate producer, Gregg Wilson, explained how he wanted to deliver “an amazing sequence,” which will be one of the major action sequences in the movie. He promises it will be “spectacular” and added that “Austria seemed to have everything we needed to pull it off.”
For Dennis Gassner, Production Designer, it had been a long journey through many countries, seeking a location to fit with what they were looking for and as he puts it, “What could be more exciting than to be up there, on top of the world ?”
The ICE Q restaurant, located at 3048m at the top of the Gaislachkogl, ticked all the boxes for that unique, modern facility that they were after.
For their second Tirolean shooting venue, the village resort of Obertilliach, located in East Tirol, also plays a leading action role in Spectre. Filmed over several days in January 2015, the scenes feature a traditional mountain hut, which becomes the focus of a spectacular explosion. The so-called ‘Bond House‘, as it is now known by the locals, had originally come from the neighbouring region, Styria, having been dismantled and re-assembled on the slopes of the Golzentipp ski area, specifically for the film.
Four locations in and around Obertilliach feature in the film, including scenes from the Grade II listed historic village centre of Obertilliach.
“I knew in March 2014 that the production company had chosen Obertilliach, and for a tourist destination, like us, it was like winning the lottery. It’s not every day that a small community of 687 has a British secret agent coming to visit,” said Obertilliach’s Mayor Matthias Scherer.
Sölden is already one of the world’s leading ski resorts, already open for the season since September and hosting the first of the Northern Hemisphere’s World Cup races for 2015-16 on the last weekend of the month and renowned for its excellent snow reliability with access to two high glaciers, impressive lift system and lively apres ski.
It’s expecting a further tourism boom from Spectre, and it’s easy for visitors to dine in the ultra cool Ice Q restaurant
Sölden offers a range of accommodation options from five-star hotels to affordable guest-houses and apartments. Search them all using the tourist boards online booking service. It’s fast, reliable, and allows you to search by a range of accommodation categories. The closest airport is Innsbruck, about an hour away and is served by easyJet, British Airways and Monarch Airlines and a number of tour operators including Crystal offer ski holidays here.
Spectre In The Tirol In Numbers
33 days of filming in Tirol
30,000 overnight stays by the cast and crew, staying in Tirol, Carinthia and Styria
600 filmmakers in the international crew.
250 filmmakers from Austria and Tirol.
210 suppliers from Austria and Tirol.
130 million movie fans watched the previous Bond film “Skyfall”.
€ 8.9 million of production-related expenditures in Tirol.
007 James Bond
Info : facebook.com/visittirol / soelden.com / osttirol.com
