Insider special: Never mind Chris Pine and Keira Knightly – Liverpool is the star of the new Jack Ryan movie!
Thousands of action fans will be heading to cinemas to see the latest in the series of Jack Ryan movies when it opens tomorrow.
But Liverpool audiences will have an extra challenge, alongside picking out the plotlines and sorting the good guys from the baddies: they’ll be able to play spot the location, since much of the film was shot here.
Liverpool business district locations were used to double for Moscow while Birkenhead’s Foundry Business Centre was transformed into New York for the duration of the shooting.
And Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit director Kenneth Branagh has revealed just why the city was the perfect choice to star alongside Chris Pine, Kevin Costner and Keira Knightley in the big budget blockbuster.
“Moscow is an amazing city, but it’s a challenge to work in because it’s so big and so spread out,” explains the esteemed director and actor.
What they wanted, he adds, was the “brilliantly noisy architecture” of Moscow – but without the hassle.
Enter Liverpool.
We not only offered the buildings, there was the cash bonus of filming in Britain too (it’s a tax thing).
“We needed a place where perhaps, frankly, we could benefit from the tax rebates and we were pointed in all sorts of directions,” he says. “Liverpool was once the most important city in the world, for a short time when it was the centre of the shipping industry and various trades, so that was able to provide us with some old imperial Moscow that, frankly, is gone.”
The thriller – based on the hugely successful Tom Clancy spy novels – took over Water Street, Castle Street and areas around the Pier Head back in September 2012, with Russian signage erected on shops and restaurants. Fans also caught a glimpse of a kidnapping scene shot on Water Street which saw leading man Pine swoop to save Keira’s character who was being held against her will in a black Jeep.
Movie fans may remember that this is the second time Liverpool has doubled for the Russian capital in a Jack Ryan film, the first being The Hunt for Red October back in 1989.