caceres will remember this year for many reasons, but most likely media shots will top that ranking. dragon’s house. The city is no rookie in cinematography. They shot in the streets of Sigourney Weaver, Alain Delon, Paul Verhoeven and Ridley Scott, names that have hardly ever been bragged about. Game of Thrones, The most watched TV series in history reminded more than once of the hidden potential of a unique residential area.
If there’s something to come international macro production manages to reconcile Cáceres with his memory. Besides the undeniable explosion of filmmaking the city has recorded in recent years, the HBO saga is responsible for supporting a trend that has made it a vein for the capital city of Cáceres.
After their first visit in 2016 to record sequences for the seventh season of Game of Thrones, they returned in 2021 to shoot the prequel, this time with unprecedented anticipation for innovation. Dragon House premiered in the summer of 2022 with millions of viewers. At that time, what cast was known except Matt Smith (Doctor Who, Crown) at the time, the city was unaware that it would become a key location for subsequent seasons. So much so that the confirmation of the second season has already sparked rumors that the production will return to Cáceres. That’s how it went.
Two years later, with names and faces making sure that the current and monumental city is King’s Landing, nearly the entire team returned to record the series to air in the second episode scheduled for 2024. It became the base of operations on the peninsula, but the production excluded other settings from the first season, such as Monsanto and La Calahorra.
A funeral and a decapitated dragon
Filming for the second season of The House of the Dragon aroused all sorts of conjectures about the subject during filming week. If fans of the saga were already speculating about the routes for the second installment scheduled for 2024, they were able to develop their hypotheses during the week with material revealed during the shooting days.
There have been media-released catches—the production company, as always, tried to protect every reach to avoid spoilers—which got fans of the prequel on the track.
Among these advanced there will be a funeral procession, possibly from Haelena’s (Phia Saban) son, Jaehaerys Targaryen. Also regarding burials, it was exceeded in Trujillo headless dragon head with arrows. Another development is that Los Barruecos will be shot from the air. It is not yet clear whether the dragons will fly over the natural area again.
On this occasion, they stay in the city for about three months—the first was almost half a year. Despite this, it remains the largest audiovisual production the capital of Cáceres has ever hosted. The technical team, which manages the Spanish link of Málaga-based HBO Fresco Films, has recruited nearly half a thousand professionals, both local and international. As for the directing and casting, Andrij Parekh, who directed the final season of Succession, cast Cáceres as the already-renowned Olivia Cooke and with additions such as Emma D’Arcy and Phia Saban.
This big exposure of the media has benefited many sectors from suppliers to logistics companies, from hoteliers to accommodation facilities, and has generated revenues of more than a year within months. At that time, the city council came to provide predictive data and estimate the economic impact of filming at ten million euros.
It is true that, aside from its obvious economic implications, the series offers an international projection of the city. In fact, the number of visitors traveling just to see the places has increased in recent years. This attraction was unavailable after the first visit in 2016 after a self-criticism exercise, with local agencies working on initiatives to draw fans of the saga into the city, including a festival for Targaryen fans.
However, even though this last visit convinced the whole city in terms of economy and tourism, voices were raised to discuss the need to organize million-dollar productions due to the damage it caused to the environment. In this last shot, in a matter of weeks, trucks, dozens of horses, cranes drove through the old city, the facades were bolstered with giant chromes, the pavement of the walled area was covered with sand, and dozens of old cars were weighed down by the production so that this breakdown could be returned to later maintenance. demands payment in some way.
The fact is that Spain has no unified criteria for shooting rates. Conditions coexist, such as in Barcelona, which charges between 150 and 700 euros, others only impose a public road occupation tax, and others like Malaga or Cáceres that charge nothing to attract production companies. In this sense, those who are in favor of taxation argue that it was logical to apply tax incentives for the promotion of the city years ago, but when the goal is achieved, a scenario that is unique in the world should be preserved. Thus, Cáceres bids farewell to yet another monumental film amid the satisfaction and discussion of the future he will have to deal with if the announcement of the third season is fulfilled.