NZ’s new TV boom
Anumber of global TV series shooting in New Zealand are getting the green light for second and third seasons. Spy hears Netflix post-apocalyptic fairytale series Sweet Tooth will shoot a second season in New Zealand starting this November.
The first season premieres this Friday on the streaming giant. The series features animal/human hybrids and has Hollywood megastar Robert Downey jnr as an executive director. He shared the trailer to his Instagram last week.
Kiwi viewers will get to see the Godzone locations they used for the first season as the adventures of Gus — played by 10-year-old Christian Convery — who leaves his home in the forest to find the outside world has been ravaged by a cataclysmic event, plays out on screen.
Others stars in Sweet Tooth are South African actor Neil Sandilands ,of The Flash fame, and our own Stefania LaVie Owen, best known for her role in The Carrie Diaries.
The highly anticipated Netflix series Cowboy Bebop, starring Star Trek star John Cho and filmed in New Zealand, is expected to drop in the next few months.
A second series, based on the popular Japanese cartoon series and helmed by
the director of Lost, will definitely get the go-ahead, sources say, but Spy hears it has been delayed from late this year and filming will now be in early 2022.
This will give Cho plenty of time to film his road movie, Don’t Make Me Go, for Amazon Studios in New Zealand.
A second and third series of British-New Zealand teen horse drama Mystic have been announced, with filming of season 2 starting around Greater Auckland tomorrow.
Star Kiwi author Stacy Gregg’s Pony Club Secrets book series has adapted well as a TV show created by CBBC and TVNZ 2 and has found a firm fan base on both sides of the world.
British actor Macey Chipping returns in the lead role of Issie Brown and is joined again by her horse-loving friends, New Zealand actors including Antonia Robinson, Max Crean and Jacqueline Joe as they ride the range of fictional Kiwi town Kauri Point.
The new episodes also feature a few well-known faces who’ll be popping up in guest roles, including Sara Wiseman, Fern Sutherland and Josephine Davison. Another teen drama being filmed in New Zealand is US teen crime series One of Us is Lying.
Filming began earlier this month on the series commissioned by NBC streaming service Peacock.
The drama reads like The Breakfast Club gone wrong when five students go on detention and only four come out alive — everyone is a suspect, and everyone has something to hide.
New Zealand talent seems light on casting for the series which includes a long list of young talent from mainly the US, as well as the UK, Canada and Australia including, Chibuikem Uche, who stars in the new Chris Pratt action flick, The Tomorrow War, Barrett Carnahan and Annalisa Cochrane from Cobra Kai and Swamp Thing actress Melissa Collazo.
The show’s executive producer, Matt Groesch, has shared pictures of the cast in scenic Kiwi locations from West Auckland beaches to Cathedral Cove in the Coromandel over the past month.
Kiwi actor George Ferrier, who stars in screen icon Charlotte Rampling’s new film, Juniper, has also featured in the photos. Although not listed officially as cast, here’s hoping Groesch has made a last-minute casting coup with Ferrier.
Cochrane has also posted some photos around Albert Park and what looks like University of Auckland campus locations, possibly standing in for a US high school.