MUMBAI: Bosses at Marvel, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox and Disney are considering to shoot the fourth edition of Transformers in Thailand.
It is because of this, location managers from Marvel, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox and Disney were in the country this week scouting for exotic shooting locales as part of a new promotional tour sponsored by the Thai government.
Ilt Jones, location manager for all three of the Transformers movies, has just wrapped up a tour of Thailand where he explored Bangkok as a potential shooting location for Transformers 4. It is said that it was all part of a new promotional exercise titled the Inbound Roadshow Familiarisation Tour that was hosted by the Thailand Film Office, a government body tasked with boosting foreign shooting in the tourism and lens-friendly Southeast Asian nation.
A select group of veteran Hollywood location managers took part in the one-week tour of Thailand‘s exotic locales. "We‘re very pleased with the turnout," said Scott Rosenberg, managing director of AMW International, the PR firm that organised the trip with the Thai government.
Lori Balton, acting president of the Location Managers Guild of America, participated in the Thailand excursion, along with location scouts working for Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and Disney. A handful of Indian, Korean, and Japanese directors and producers were also in the country for the tour.
Designed to generate enthusiasm for working in Thailand among the industry set who matter most, the weeklong trip, which began last Monday, took the location pros to the historical ruins of Ayutthaya, through Bangkok‘s frenetic streets and canals, to a festival celebration in the northern city of Chiang Rai, and a cave kayaking in Phang Nga Bay-among other uniquely Thai points of interest.
"We‘re visiting Thailand‘s many amazing locations, but also showing the VIPs our crews, studios, labs, and equipment-everything a major international production needs," said Ms. Worateera Suvarnsorn, a spokesperson for the Thailand Film Office. "Usually we do outbound trips to the festivals and film markets to promote Thailand; this time we decided to try bringing them here."
The trip concluded with a visit to the restaurant at the top of Bangkok‘s State Tower where a climactic helicopter scene of The Hangover 2 was filmed.