Wes Anderson’s latest movie starts shooting in Madrid town of Chinchón

American filmmaker Wes Anderson has begun shooting his latest movie in the Madrid town of Chinchón. Little is known about the script of the project, but the production team has made reservations at a number of local hotels and houses in the picturesque setting, which is home to 5,000 inhabitants and is located 46 kilometers southeast of the capital.

There is also no news about when the stars of the movie will be on location. These include his regular collaborators Bill Murray and Tilda Swinton, as well as other major names including Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Margot Robbie and Bryan Cranston. The Royal Tenenbaums and The Grand Budapest Hotel are among Anderson’s previous films.

So far, all that is known about this latest project is that while it may resemble a Western, it is not a Western, and that while it is being filmed in Spain, it has nothing to do with Spain

There has been a trickle of announcements of additional cast members for this as yet unnamed project, including another regular collaborator of Anderson’s, Jason Schwartzman, along with Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis and Jeffrey Wright. Several of these actors appeared in The French Dispatch, which was Anderson’s last film.

So far, all that is known about this latest project is that while it may resemble a Western, it is not a Western, and that while it is being filmed in Spain, it has nothing to do with Spain. What’s more, not all of the actors will be shooting together, given that the plot lines will overlap – as is a common trait of his movies. In The French Dispatch, for example, which will be released in Spain at the end of October, there are more than 25 French and US actors in the cast, but very few of them appear on screen together given that the plot takes place in the various sections of The French Dispatch Magazine.

The shooting of the film will be shrouded in secrecy thanks to confidentiality contracts that prevent the crew from discussing the project. However, via social media, the Club de Golf in the Madrid city of Aranjuez announced that its installations would be closed on September 6 for a day of filming to take place there.

The filmmaker has chosen Chinchón thanks to its landscape, logistics (Anderson lives in France), the quality of the Spanish production team, and its previous use by Orson Welles to film Chimes at Midnight.

The security is tight at the hotels where the production team are staying. But rumors abound in Chinchón about the project, and José Luis Oliver, 62, reports seeing a lot more activity in the town since the team began to arrive around two months ago. He has noticed it with his job as a parking attendant, but also at his son Francisco’s establishment, a pizzeria named Kronos.

Knock-on effect

“We supply the whole area and sometimes they order as many as 20 pizzas for the parador,” he explains, in reference to the state-owned luxury hotel. One of the employees of the restaurant, Pedro Yuste, 25, confirms that the crew have also dined there and that they have had to send pizzas out to shooting locations on the outskirts of the town. “They hired my brother to be on the door checking who comes in,” he explains. “They’ve had problems with people trying to get in there, but also with residents who complain that they’ve been walking around there their whole lives.”

The project has also had a knock-on effect on other productions. The exterior of the Paraíso nightclub, which was built for the show of the same name for cable network Movistar+, was also built in a field in Chinchón. Shooting of the second season is being completed right now, and that team – led by director Fernando González Molina – has been unable to find accommodation in the town due to the arrival of the Americans.

English version by Simon Hunter.