Location Guide - The World Is Not Enough

 

Bilbao, Spain
James Bond shows up in the bustling city of Bilbao to collect a payload of £3m from a Swiss banker on behalf of Sir Robert King - somewhere in the vicinity of the Guggenheim Museum. In the office of the dodgy banker, Bond reveals his motives, but before he presses his line of questioning home, Mr Lachaise is knifed by an alluring and mysterious assassin. Bond blockades himself in the office and when the Spanish police conveniently show up to investigate, 007 takes an alternate escape route.

 

 

London, UK
Back on home turf, Bond delivers the money to King at MI6 HQ. When the cash is rigged with a chemical explosive triggered by King's lapel pin, Bond spies the same assassin watching on a boat on the Thames. A chase ensues with 007 onboard Q's "Fishing" Boat from Lambeth to North Greenwich where the assassin ad-lib's an escape aboard a hot-air balloon waiting at the Millennium Dome. Bond returns to MI6 after the assassin, with nowhere to turn, commits suicide.

 

 

Eileen Donan, UK
M and the MI6 team journey to Eileen Castle, Scotland, to set up temporary HQ and attend King's funeral where Bond spies the beautiful but devastated Elektra King. At the Loch Duich MI6 outpost, Bond is given a full bill of health by the gracious Dr. Warmflash and briefed on Renard, whom M believes to be the biggest threat to King's daughter.

 

 

Baku, Azerbaijan
Bond takes the BMW Z8 to Azerbaijan to rendezvous with Elektra, who is overseeing the final stages of the King pipeline. At the temple on a Baku cliff face, Elektra is given condolences by the locals before inspecting the pipeline in a high-octane ski scene, with Bond hotly on her tail. After a close shave with the parahawks in the Caucasus alps, Bond returns with Elektra to her Baku estate to pump her for a little extra information. Later, back at the pipeline, Bond and Christmas Jones race against the terrorists to defuse a bomb in the depths of the pipe.

 

 

Nuclear Decommissioning Facility, Kazakhstan
Bond assumes Arkov's identity and joins a private flight to the remote ex-Soviet nuclear bunker in Kazakhstan, where some of Renard's heavies are orchestrating a robbery of live nuclear warheads. Bond teams up with the delightful Dr. Jones as the villains wreak havoc at the plant. Bond and Jones escape amid explosions, but they cannot prevent the goons escaping with a warhead.

 

 

Istanbul, Turkey
Bond, realising Elektra was behind the pipeline bombing, pursues the villains to Turkey where he meets Zukovsky at his caviar factory on the Caspian Sea. 007 is once again the target of an assassination attempt by Renard's goons, this time double-crossed by Mr Bullion. Bond escapes relatively unharmed although the Z8 and the factory are completely destroyed. At Maiden's Tower, in the Bosphorus Strait, Elektra has made her headquarters. Bond boards a submarine and does battle with Renard in the sub's nuclear reactor room.

 

Shooting The World Is Not Enough
Production on "The World In Not Enough" charted six countries and true to the plot, visited Spain, Scotland, Turkey as well as France and Wales to film the 19th James Bond film. With acclaimed drama director Michael Apted at the helm, production began in January 1999 and by February the team were on location in Spain. The opening sequence was canned almost entirely on location in Bilbao near the impressive architecture of the Guggenheim Museum - first opened in 1997. The crew shot on the streets for just two days and when Pierce Brosnan appeared on-set a host of Spanish Bond fans showed out to observe on a truly massive scale.

The Spanish countryside also served as a double for the Caucasus-set Azerbaijan. Bond speeds the Z8 through Los Callejones, La Mancha on his way to meet Elektra at the pipeline. The crew then moved on to the Bardenas Reales in Navarre semi-desert - in the south east of Spain. Here Apted captured the exteriors of the Kazakhstani nuclear decommissioning plant where 007 catches up with Renard and Christmas Jones.

Right (above): Bond is tasked with reclaiming funds from a crooked Swiss banker in Bilbao before delivering his payload to MI6 in London. (below): Bond, M, Robinson and Moneypenny all attend Sir Robert King's funeral after his assassination in London.

 

The production returned to the UK where scenes were shot in England, Scotland and Wales. Sir Robert King's funeral was captured in Stowe Park, Buckinghamshire - not in Scotland as the plot leads us to believe. The crew did journey north to shoot exteriors for the MI6 safe house in Eilean Donan which features the impressive 13th Century castle built by Alexander II. Zukovsky's casino interiors as well as Elektra's grand home were both captured at Luton Hoo, a stately home in Bedfordshire, which hosts a staggering array of Spanish artifacts and rare Rubens paintings.

In March 1999, sections of the Thames were cordoned off for a day at a time over a six-week period as Brosnan worked closely with the action unit to create one of the most ambitious pre-title sequences ever committed to film. Vic Armstrong and his team had to contend with fairly strict government regulations and how and when their filming could take place. By the end of the intense location shoot, the crew had used 35 different boats for the Thames chase.


Above: From the Eileen safe house to Baku; on a private flight to hostile Kazakhstan and back to Baku, before tracing Elektra and Renard to Istanbul...

At Pinewood Studios a number of impressive interiors were captured and on the back-lot Brosnan and Richards jumped in the deep end to capture the high-octane action set in and around Zukovsky's caviar factory on the shores of the Caspian. The gigantic water-tank on the Pinewood back lot served the crew on a series of cool night-shoots.

The second unit took a detour to the French alps, near Chamonix-Mont-Blanc on the border of France and Switzerland. Here Bond and Elektra survey the pipeline whilst a skeleton crew captured the atmosphere on the fringe of Baku, Azerbaijan where Bond drives along the coast littered with oil pumps.

The crew left home once more to shoot scenes on location in and around Istanbul, Turkey. The striking Maidens Tower was used by the crew in the film's finale whilst the exterior underwater sequences were canned in the sunny Bahamas with the Russian nuclear submarine built in miniature.